“It feels amazing,” reflected senior Jennifer Kerr on her CIF win for girls tennis. This is her second consecutive CIF win as part of the SDA team, and although there was more pressure to take home the title due to her win last year, Kerr was determined to play for herself.

“I didn’t want to be like ‘Oh, I have to play this to win it again,’” she said. “I wanted to go out and play it because I could and because I want to.”

Participating in the championship last year helped prepare Kerr for her strategy this year. “I just kind of learned the whole process of how everything was going to take place,” she said. “It was going to be like another tournament.”

During the school season, Kerr practiced roughly 15 hours a week both with the team and individually and participated in tournaments on the weekends. After the school season, Kerr plans to continue playing in tournaments to keep up her skills.

Her hard work has paid off, since she has verbally committed to Columbia University with a spot on their tennis team. “I’m very excited because three of the four people including me are from the SoCal area,” she said, adding, “[It’s] crazy to have more than one person from one area all over the US so the fact that we have three from SoCal that I’ve grown up with [and know personally] is super exciting.”

While tennis has been a big part of Kerr’s life, as of now, she doesn’t have any plans to play professionally after college. “If I do well in college – like if I do really well – then I can try it but I don’t have any plans to play professional tennis right now.”

Although Kerr may be going to play tennis on the other side of the country, she won’t forget how the SDA team has influenced her. To Kerr, the team’s easy ability to get along has given her a “second family.”

“It exposed me to a lot of people that I wouldn’t have otherwise known and I’m very grateful for that,” she said.