Torrance High’s newest sports team, pickleball, made history last weekend as they reigned supreme at CIF State Championships.

The Torrance Pickleball team was formed just this year, and has already made enormous strides in the fast growing sport, including setting a high school record for the longest pickleball rally of 5,415 consecutive shots (The spectacle lasted an 1 hour and 16 minutes at the Wilson Park pickleball court).

Their success this season can be attributed to Alan Stern, the star Senior who has risen through the ranks to lead the team through their CIF prelims and finals games.

“I’ve been playing ever since I was a little kid,” says Alan. “My friends in tennis used to make fun of me, but now they’re the ones cheering me on as soon as I step off the court.”

Their path to stardom has been a long and winding road, though: “When we started last summer, we really struggled to get funding, and we only had, like, five people on the team. It took a few games to kind of realize our potential, which allowed us to grow the team more.”

Alan says the thing that helps him focus the most is eating a whole can of tuna right before a game.

None of this would’ve been possible without head coach Adam Cross, who built the team from the ground up: “I met Alan and some of our other guys last summer, and we all really wanted to start a Pickleball team.”

“We would practice every morning at six, just our motley crew of five guys, and when the season started we were able to work with the school to make it an official team.”

Following their massive success at State, the team moves on to Nationals taking place in Albuquerque, New Mexico on May 20th. 

Until then, the team plans to “train like we’ve never trained before, we’ve put in the work so far, there’s nothing stopping us now.” says Stern.

If you’d like to support the pickleball team, you can purchase a Torrance Pickleball t-shirt in ASB.