By the time the individual and team state tournaments had wrapped up during the 2024 spring tennis season, Peak to Peak’s girls had put the rest of Class 3A on notice.

The Pumas were here to play, and they were dangerous.

The ladies out of Lafayette first impressed during the team bracket-style competition, where they reached the state semifinals before falling to Vail Christian by a 4-3 margin, then enjoyed an even stronger performance at the individual state tournament.

Five out of seven lines played into the individual semifinals or further, as No. 2 doubles pair Josie Adams and Molly Kolachov won gold and Ranye Ezenekwe, at No. 3 singles, paved her way to silver.

This season, the Pumas will have three tenacious seniors leading them thanks to Lena Crotty (1 singles), Sydney Lewis (2 singles) and Ranye Ezenekwe (3 singles), and a schedule that isn’t afraid to bite.

“I think our expectations this year are to try to take another step forward,” head coach Mike Crotty said. “One of the things I did is scheduled a lot better schedule as far as bigger teams, better teams like Boulder, like Erie, like Holy Family — in addition to playing Kent Denver, (Prospect Ridge Academy) and (Colorado Academy), the usual really good teams. One of the areas we’re trying to focus on this year is just playing better competition.”

Through its early duals, Peak to Peak has seen both success and setback, sweeping Erie while also defeating Boulder (4-3) and falling to Kent Denver (5-2), which won the 4A state team title last year.

Ezenekwe said that after falling to Sofia Cieslewicz out of D’Evelyn in the individual 3 singles championship — which she attributed in part to a rain delay ruining her rhythm — she’s ready to storm back into the postseason with her eye firmly on the final prize.

“I would say that this year, we have a lot more vision as to what the state tournament looks like and we have a lot more preparedness,” she said. “Our coaches are amazing, fantastic. We definitely have a lot of direction now that I think that we lacked before but this year, I think we’re ready to go in strong and win team state.”

Throughout the offseason, Ezenekwe worked with the coaches at Apex Tennis Center in Arvada on more consistent serves, her topspin and her power, and has seen that hard work pay off through her early 3-0 mark this year. She’s only dropped seven games through six sets.

Lewis, meanwhile, remained undefeated at 2 singles until the state semis last year, and fell by a 6-2, 6-3 score to Holy Family’s Annabelle Kenny, then settled for third place with a win over Vail Christian’s Juliet Studness.

She said her mental tenacity, as well as her desire to succeed for her team, kept her perfect up until her penultimate match. She spent the offseason formulating new strategies to make her game more concise and to end points faster.

A three-sport athlete, she believes her time on the basketball and volleyball courts only help to sharpen her for the spring.

“I’m pretty consistent,” Lewis said. “I can go for a long time from the baseline or from anywhere and go after every ball, so it’s hard to kind of get me to mess up first, I like to think. In both of those sports, basketball especially, you don’t get a break every 30 seconds like you do in tennis. It’s keeping that stamina up and a lot of running across the court. That’s definitely helped a lot.”

Lena Crotty, meanwhile, returns after playing into the quarterfinals of the 1 singles individual bracket. She believes that while last year’s team had plenty of depth — with girls consistently winning up and down the lineup — this is one of the strongest teams Peak to Peak has ever seen.

The energy shift that ensued after last year’s coaching change, as well as the team-first mentality that came with it, only heightens the level of excitement for what the Pumas can accomplish this year.

After all, they came tantalizingly close to a team state championship appearance last season.

“I feel like everyone on our team really stepped up and was putting in the work and practice, and that really reflected heavily on the court during the season,” Lena Crotty said. “I would say it was the effort, the cohesion of the team — kind of everyone wanting to win for not just themselves but for the team. We all became really close. I felt that the team chemistry really became stronger during my upper classman years.”