PUEBLO >> According to Niwot girls tennis coach Aimee Hites, freshman Sahasra Kolli is a fun-loving kid who is one of the most vocal on team bus rides.

On the tennis court, however, she’s all business.

She proved that on Saturday at Pueblo City Park when she rolled to a 6-2, 6-1 win over Cheyenne Mountain’s Alyssa Sadri to claim the Class 4A No. 2 singles championship. In her first year of competition at the high school level, she put together a championship-level performance, something she knew she was capable of early in the year.

“I was the No. 1 seed and I had played everyone before,” Kolli said. “I knew I could do it and just wanted to treat it like it a dual match.”

The individual championships at Pueblo City Park are far from a dual match, however. The rain wiped out an entire day’s worth of play on Thursday so Kolli had to battle through three matches on Friday just to reach the final.

The task didn’t faze her. She handled the entire tournament with poise and stayed within herself through all four matches.

She gave up no more than three games in a single set and that came in the first round against Thomas Jefferson junior Lily Mullins. Beyond that, she handled herself like an upperclassman.

“I knew what we had coming in, but I didn’t know that she was going to be at this level mentally,” Hites said. “Physically, yeah. But mentally, as a freshman, this is not easy to do. So she proved she can mentally do it. The next three years, we’ll see what happens.”

Hites thinks that Kolli could have competed well in the No. 1 singles position. The Cougars didn’t qualify a No. 1 singles player for the tournament, but for Kolli’s development, playing at No. 2 singles was probably a better move for this year.

“It was nice because I won most of my matches ,” Kolli said. “As a freshman I hadn’t had many matches so it was nice to ease into things.”

She wasn’t the only Cougar to leave Pueblo with a medal as junior Tracy Yu took third in the No. 3 singles brackets. After losing to Kent Denver’s Meredith Waters in the semifinals, she beat Longmont’s Stella Rulon in the playbacks to advance to the third-place match. She handled Mullen’s Savanna Hanley 6-2, 6-1 to take the bronze.

Silver Creek also left with some hardware as Liana Kelly took fourth in No. 2 singles. Overall, three positions advanced to placing matches, two of which came away with wins. Both of those were Niwot players.

Kolli’s win at No. 2 singles gives her a chance to win four state titles in her high school career and her freshman campaign in Pueblo will serve as a crucial moment of her athletic development.

“It depends on the kid, but she’s so even keel,” Hites said. “She never smacks a racket. You don’t see her get mad or see her yell. She has the right mindset to go from two to one.”

And it won’t be a surprise when she starts contending for state championships at that position for the next three years.