Mountain View sophomore Rebecca Napolitano spent her freshman season becoming accustomed to Colorado high school tennis, improving her game and studying her opponents. Those three things made for a better season in her second one with the Mountain Lions, a season that culminated with her first victory at the state tournament which capped a campaign that saw her win more than 75% of her matches. She was 12-1 in dual matches, with her only loss in dual play coming against Severance’s Joanna Carter.

Carter also handed Napolitano her only loss in the Class 4A Region 4 tournament. For a season that saw her not only step up her game but also beat every top singles player in the city, Napolitano is this year’s Reporter-Herald girls tennis player of the year. Napolitano credits her successful season to things she learned as a freshman.

She is as much a student of the game, watching her opponents and forming strategies to use against them, as she is a player of it. “I just learned how certain players play and what are good strategies to beat them,” she said. “And also, I developed a sense of how good everyone is that I would be playing.

” She picked up the sport while attending a summer camp, and tennis was offered as an alternative to some of the other activities she considered boring, she said. It turned out to be a good decision, even though she was unfamiliar. “In the beginning, I didn’t really understand what it was,” she said.

“I felt good at it from the begin.