Sunny Hills Struggles to Advance

If Sunny Hills hopes to ride the success of its doubles teams deeper into the Southern Section Division II playoffs, it might be time to step on the gas.

The fourth-seeded Lancers slipped past Oxnard Rio Mesa, 10-8, in the quarterfinals Tuesday at the Sunny Hills Racquet Club, but needed to win one of the final two sets to advance. Sunny Hills will play top-seeded North Hollywood Harvard Westlake in the semifinals Thursday.

“I think we were very tight today for some reason,” Sunny Hills Coach Steve White said. “I think we were afraid to lose today.”

The Lancers (17-4) did win seven of nine sets in doubles, but gave away one set and let a couple of others get closer than they might have been. Richard Kim and Jimmy Chu let a 4-1 lead get away against Josh Bautista and Thi Nguyen in the second round, resulting in a 7-6 loss.

“They just slowly crept up on us,” Chu said. “We just looked at each other and said, ‘What are we doing?’ ”

The score was tied after the first two rounds, but Sunny Hills held a 55-49 advantage on games after the second. In addition to the tiebreaker loss by Kim and Chu, Rio Mesa’s Davey Jones broke Sam Yeu with the score tied, 5-5, then served out for a a 7-5 victory.

After Sunny Hills’ top doubles team of Raj Vyas and Davin Lin completed their sweep, 6-1, 6-2, 6-3, and Joseph Kao completed his sweep in singles, 6-3, 6-0, 6-1, the Lancers were one set from a victory.

Jones then finished off Robert Lo, 6-1, and Quinn Borchard defeated Yeu, 6-2, to even the score for Rio Mesa (18-2). That left two sets remaining and Kim and Chu were able to clinch the match with a 6-4 victory over Worthington and Nguyen.

“We had our flashes of brilliance,” Chu said. “I guess me and Richard have been playing so long together, sometimes we get complacent. When we get things going, we are tough to beat though.”

In another Division II match:

University 13, Santa Barbara 5--Greg Biorkman, Aaron Yovan and Henry Mak swept in singles to lead second-seeded University (18-3), which advanced to play the Los Angeles Loyola-Thousand Oaks winner in the semifinals. Santa Barbara finished 14-7.

In Division III:

Agoura 12, Foothill 6--John Goss finished 1-6, 6-4, 6-0, for Foothill (15-3), but Agoura’s doubles teams won all but one set for the victory.

Westlake 15, Canyon 3--Eric Janson swept in singles, 6-0, 6-1, 6-1, for host Westlake. Canyon finished the season 14-7.

In Division IV:

Servite 12, Palm Desert 6--Brock Heimann and Pat Buchanan both swept in singles for visiting Servite (19-3). Buchanan lost only one game, sweeping, 6-0, 6-1, 6-0. Heimann dropped three games in sweeping, 6-2, 6-1, 6-0.