Southern Section Tennis Playoffs : Dana Hills Advances to Semifinals

Shortly after winning match point Tuesday, the Dana Hills High School team of Neel Grover and Stan Saunders shook hands with their Mission Viejo opponents and walked off the court.

The only problem was that the match wasn’t over. Grover and Saunders thought they had won the set, 7-6 (7-5 in the tiebreaker). But there had been a scoring error. The score actually was 6-4, which meant that Dana Hills needed one more point to win the set. The teams returned to the court, and Grover and Saunders won, 7-5.

So Dana Hills, which swept all nine singles matches, also had the edge in doubles, winning five of nine as it beat Mission Viejo, 14-4, in the CIF Southern Section 3-A tennis quarterfinals at Dana Hills High.

Dana Hills (17-3) eliminated Mission Viejo (14-8) and advanced to the semifinals against Los Alamitos.

After losing to Dana Hills twice during the regular season, Mission Viejo Coach Bill Smith moved Greg Pearne, the South Coast League singles player of the year, to doubles. Pearne and his partner, Andy Frank, won two of three matches, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the Diablos from losing.

“We have more depth than Mission Viejo does,” Art Jenkins, Dana Hills coach said. “He put his strength in doubles, and my singles players really came through.”

Freshman Ryan Gately, Dana Hills’ No. 1 singles player, beat Brad Mosley, Rex Johnson and Dean Shepherd without giving up a game. Dana Hills’ other two singles players, Steve Saba and John Anderson, also each defeated Mosley, Johnson and Shepherd.

In doubles, the Mission Viejo team of Billy Smith and Matt Keller won two of three matches, and the Dana Point team of Grover and Saunders won all three of its matches.

Said Smith: “They’re solid down the line. We wanted to win some early, so they would tighten up, but we didn’t, and they were really loose.”

In other 3-A quarterfinal action:

Los Alamitos 11, San Marino 7--The Empire League Champion Griffins advanced in one quarterfinal match with a win over the Titans.

Capistrano Valley 9, Mater Dei 9--The Cougars (18-2) advanced to the semifinals on games, 88-81. Steve Sprinkle won all three of his sets for Capistrano Valley, which defeated the Monarchs (17-3) for the third time this season. Capistrano Valley will play Calabasas Tuesday.