On October 29, 2017, the North Allegheny varsity girls’ tennis team played at the PIAA state championship tournament in Hershey.

They took first place for the tournament and became the 2017 state tennis champions. The NA varsity tennis team has had a great record the past couple of years, and the coaches and players made sure this year was no different, leading the team to win WPIALS in addition to the PIAA state tournament.

However, even more significant than the team winning the tournament was Ava Catanzarite, a freshman, led the team in the first singles game, despite losing her grandfather a few days before. Ava says her grandfather’s death “gave [her] motivation, but at the same time the thought was fresh in [her] mind because he had just died, so feelings were hard to control at times.” The team ended up beating the defending champion Harriton in the final game 4-1 to win the tournament. In addition, Catanzarite stated that to prepare for tennis matches or tournaments, her goal is to “clear [her] mind and get into the right mindset for [the] match.” and that was no different this time.

After the ending of this season, Catanzarite hopes to continue playing tennis through high school and hopefully play at a D1 college to work towards her goal of playing professionally as an adult in national and international tournaments. Though winning this state tournament was probably the biggest achievement for Catanzarite and the rest of the team this season, they had many other memorable moments playing together, like winning WPIALS, going undefeated throughout the season, “and many inside jokes that made the season so hard to say goodbye to”.