Nothin’ but love

Rick Devereux

When a high school designates someone as its athlete of the year,

that person usually excelled in multiple sports. For someone to be

named athlete of the year and only participate in one sport, he or

she better do more than just excel, that person better dominate.

Brittany Holland did dominate the tennis scene for her four years

at Corona del Mar High. Holland, headed to Princeton in the fall with

a 4.1 GPA, finished her high school career with three All-Pacific

Coast League selections, two CIF team championships, a CIF doubles

championship and the Corona del Mar’s Girls Athlete of the Year

award.

Holland was seen as someone special when she first arrived for the

Sea Kings.

“Brittany is going to be a superstar for years to come,”

then-Coach Andy Stewart said before Holland’s freshman year. “Her

overall play is very strong.”

Stewart didn’t have to be Nostradamus to make that prediction

considering Holland won the Junior Tennis Classic singles tournament

twice; breezing to the 14 singles title as a 13-year-old while

dropping only one set in the entire tournament, and taking the 16

singles title when she was 14 in order to get a tougher challenge.

Holland made her presence known early in her high school career by

losing only two games in her first match for the Sea Kings. Mid-way

through her freshman season, Holland paired with Leslie Damion in

doubles and the two became established as the team’s No. 1 tandem

finishing the season undefeated as the PCL doubles champions before

being eliminated in the CIF Southern Section Division IV semifinals.

Corona del Mar won the CIF girls tennis championship and the PCL team

title, thanks in large part to Holland’s ability to win in singles

and doubles play.

Holland was awarded the season-long Southern California Tennis

Association Junior Sportsmanship Award, voted upon by her 14s peers

the summer after her freshman year. That summer Holland, known for

her aggressive play, won the War by the Shore Junior Tennis Classic

for the third year in a row.

Her sophomore year started much as her freshman season ended,

winning matches for CdM. She started out, again, destroying the

competition in singles action. She bounced between doubles and

singles action for most of the season before smoking the rest of the

field to capture her second PCL doubles crown, this time with Taylynn

Snyder. The two were runners-up in the CIF individual doubles, the

first CIF final appearance a CdM duo had earned since Megan Wachtler

and Alissa Scott in 1994. The team repeated as CIF champions.

Holland moved up to the 18s and bypassed her second year in 16s in

the Southern California Tennis Association and won the Fallbrook and

Avila Bay tournaments the summer before her junior year.

During her junior year, Holland again started playing singles and

showed her versatility by moving over to doubles. The Sea Kings

earned the PCL crown again and Holland and Snyder repeated as doubles

champs in league. The two also claimed the CIF doubles title, the

first CIF doubles champions for CdM since 1971.

As a senior, Holland concentrated on singles play and dominated

her competition en route to a PCL singles crown. She lost just seven

sets the entire year.

Her legacy at Corona del Mar crossed over from athletics to all

aspects of student life. Holland was the co-editor of the school

paper, member of the club Tolerance Among People, an Advance

Placement-student, and she performed charity work for the Assistance

League, volunteering at a thrift shop and a dental clinic.