Former Dos Pueblos High tennis star Lauren Stratman has committed to attend Westmont College in the fall and play tennis for the Warriors, the school announced Wednesday.
Stratman is a four-time Channel League singles champion who went undefeated in four years for the Chargers in dual matches (135-0). She attended Columbia in New York for her freshman year of college and decided to return to Santa Barbara a couple of weeks into her second semester at the Ivy League school.
Lauren Stratman will resume her college tennis career at Westmont.
“My whole family started going through some incredible changes,” said Stratman, regarding a spiritual journey that led her family to a profound faith in Jesus Christ. “I was at college living my own life when I had a dream that I needed to go home and leave a very self-centered life behind. I didn’t know what I was doing but my life has totally changed in the best way I could imagine”
New Westmont coach Kendyll McManigal is thrilled to have Stratman join her team.
“Lauren has the potential to be one of the top players that Westmont Tennis has ever had,” McManigal said. “She has an excellent reputation not only as a tennis player, but spiritually and academically as well.”
On her game, McManigal said: “Lauren has a great forehand. She can move the ball around with her forehand and has a great ability to come forward.”
In 2010, Stratman won the United States Tennis Association National Open Girls 16’s single championship.
As a senior at Dos Pueblos, Stratman was named the Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table Girls Tennis Athlete of the Year and reached the CIF-Southern Section singles tournament semifinals. She became only the second player in history to win four straight Channel League singles titles.
From a very young age through high school, Stratman was coached by her father, Hugh Stratman, Tennis Director at the Santa Barbara Tennis Club. She graduated from DP with a 4.8 grade-point average.
