Van’t Hof Caps Off Graduation Day

By 11 a.m. Saturday, Santa Ana Mater Dei’s Kaes Van’t Hof had completed his final task as a high school student. All that remained was closure to his prep tennis career.

Placed at the front of the line of graduating seniors, Van’t Hof received his diploma in Irvine, then hustled to SeaCliff Tennis Club in Huntington Beach, where a noon Southern Section individual tournament semifinal match awaited.

Five hours later, after defeating top-seeded Blake Muller of Santa Barbara, 6-3, 7-6 (3), in the finals, Van’t Hof proudly accepted another mark of achievement: the boys’ singles championship plaque.

The tennis victory was more exciting, Van’t Hof said in comparing the day’s two events. “I knew I’d be graduating for four years,” he said. “I didn’t know I was going to win this tournament.”

With the victory, Van’t Hof becomes Mater Dei’s first singles champion and the only son of a former Southern Section champion to take the title. His father, Robert, won the event in 1976.

Van’t Hof, seeded second in the draw, broke Muller’s serve in the second game of the match -- the only break in the entire contest. Van’t Hof’s overpowering first serve and ground strokes proved too much for Muller, who had won a draining, three-set semifinal match over Anaheim Servite’s Jonathan Sanchez earlier in the day.

Van’t Hof defeated Irvine Woodbridge’s Mike McClune, 6-4, 4-6, 6-1, in the semifinal round and did not want the championship match going to a third set.

“I was trying to end points quickly,” said Van’t Hof, who lost a three-set match in the tiebreaker of the CIF boys’ singles division final at the Ojai Valley tournament last month.

Van’t Hof will continue playing competitively next fall when he enrolls at USC. Muller, a junior, will probably be a college teammate of Van’t Hof’s in 2005.

In the doubles draw, Redondo’s Andy Gerst and Nick Berger defeated teammates Jon Vlasach and Logan Bailey, 3-6, 6-1, 6-1, in the championship match.

Juniors Gerst and Berger had advanced to the round of 16 and quarterfinals in consecutive seasons.

Seniors Vlasach and Bailey, Redondo’s No. 1 doubles team for most of this season, beat Berger and Gerst in the Ocean League championship match earlier in the month but had little luck against the pair before that contest.

After a sloppy first set for Gerst and Berger, the duo took control from the net down the stretch, prompting a long-awaited, yet somewhat subdued, celebration.

“We’ve been wanting this since our freshmen years,” said Berger, who helped defeat top-seeded Grant Robertson and Chris Ho of Santa Barbara, 6-2, 6-1, in the semifinals.

“I wish [the victory] would have come against another team.”