Mission Accomplished for L.A. Mission College Capping
Undefeated Season with State Titles at The Ojai

Baseball is Joe Cascione’s first love, but it’s the sport of tennis where the L.A. Mission College women’s tennis coach experienced one of his greatest coaching accomplishments last week. The famous Ojai Tennis Tournament was the setting for Cascione’s Eagles, who captured their first California Community College Athletic Association State Title in dramatic fashion.

The L.A. Mission College women’s 2026 season was a dream run, finishing 25 straight wins against zero losses and a week at The Ojai the players will not soon forget. It’s a roster Cascione built through tenacious and relentless recruiting, and one filled from top to bottom with locally grown players from the San Fernando Valley and Santa Clarita.

“They just came out to practice every day and worked hard and really enjoyed the experience,” Cascione said of his rag-tag bunch of players. “We do go to the local schools and try to recruit the best we can. We had four talented freshmen and 10 sophomores. We just caught lightning in a bottle.”

It all came down to the final match of the day in the state final against Northern California’s Sierra College. With the score tied at 4-all, L.A. Mission sophomore Josilyn Rivera came back from a set down to clinch the team a title, 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (0).

“I have never been so nervous during a match until that day,” said Rivera, who lives in Stevenson Ranch and attended Kennedy High School for three years transferring to Birmingham her senior year. “I was like, ‘What’s happening?’ All eyes are on me. It was insane.”

Rivera dominated the final tiebreaker, not dropping a point as she closed it out 7-0.

“I just thought I gotta get every ball in,” Rivera said of what she was thinking heading into the breaker. “I’m not gonna stop moving my feet. She was a great player and got everything back.”

“It hasn’t sunk in yet. I had to watch the video like 14 times a day just to make sure it was real.”

If the singles final delivered drama, the doubles final raised it even higher.

Not to be outdone, it was Josilyn’s younger sister, sophomore Jaelyn Rivera, paired up with Eagles teammate Priscilla Grinner to close out The Ojai in even more dramatic fashion, capturing the CCCAA Individual Doubles title over Chabot College in a thrilling third-set tiebreaker, 6-7 (6), 6-1, 7-6 (13-11), as the sun went down at Libbey Park on Sunday. 

Jaelyn, who like her sister graduated from Birmingham High, and Grinner, from Woodland Hills and a Granada Hills High graduate, held four match points but were unable to convert in the sea-saw match. Following two match points against them, they finally secured the win before a crowd filled with loyal team supporters and fans rushed the court and joined in on the victory hug and dance with Coach Cascione right in the middle of it all.

The doubles win clinched the Individual team title at The Ojai for L.A. Mission, as the Eagles secured the most points tallied in singles and doubles during the four day event. Mission’s No. 1 player Amy Nghiem was responsible for a big chunk of those points as she advanced to the semifinals of the 128-player draw losing to eventual runner-up Emma Chodur from College of the Canyons.

A freshman from Northridge, Nghiem was part of a CIF-City Section winning team title at Granada Hills High. She said the closeness of the Mission team is why they kept on winning all season.

“This year was honestly really easy for us just because we are so close,” Nghiem said. “Just looking back at how hard we trained every single day, it was like I never expected to lose. I seriously thought we wouldn’t lose a match all year because our team is so strong at every line – from top to bottom.”

The L.A. Mission women’s tennis program is in just its fifth year of existence and started by Cascione following his run of 19 years as the head baseball coach at the school located in the east San Fernando city of Sylmar with an enrollment just under 10,000 students.

Cascione will be the first to tell you he couldn’t have done it without the tireless work of his two assistant coaches, Porfirio Cervantes, in his third year, and Yuliia Zhytelna, in her first season with the program. Originally from Kiev, Ukraine, Zhytelna played No. 1 at California State University, Northridge where she was a four-year starter, bringing high level collegiate experience to the staff. Cervantes, meanwhile, helped recruit a core group of local players who may not have seen a clear pathway to four year college tennis, many of whom he had coached since their early junior careers in middle school, including Riveras and Nghiem.

Cascione was born in the Bronx in New York City and moved to the San Fernando Valley as a child and played baseball for St. Genevieve High, L.A. Pierce College and graduated from California Lutheran University. After a couple years of pro ball and 27 years of coaching baseball, Cascione said he was ready for a change.

“Tennis has always been a big passion of mine and I’ve always played, but just recreationally,” Cascione said. “So when I asked if I could start a women’s tennis program, everybody kind of thought I was nuts. I had a little success in baseball, and [the school] believed in what we did. I told them I think I could bring that same type of environment to the tennis world here, and that’s how it all started.”

He continued: “The team just really bought in, and they were there for one another the whole time. It was just an amazing run. We didn’t set out to go 25-0. First, it was the conference title, and then we had to win each individual playoff match, and then here comes the state title. It’s just a great bunch of ladies.”

Other team members included Kirsten Bonzon from Sylmar and Sylmar High School, Cittalli Diaz from Woodland Hills and Chatsworth High School, America Fragoso from Arleta and Granada Hills High School, Genesis Nochez from Santa Clarita and West Ranch High School, Alitzel Ortega Partida from Santa Clarita and Golden Valley High School, and Natalia Ponce from San Fernando and Kennedy High School.

How did the little school from the Valley pull off a CCCAA state team title, and then a doubles state title to be one of the top storylines at the storied 124th Ojai Tennis Tournament?

“We thought, ‘Why not us?’,” the hero on Wednesday Josilyn Rivera said. “We’re just a small college in Sylmar. So, it’s pretty cool for us all being local players to win playing some of the best programs in the state sometimes filled with international players.”