Shadowlands

Looking back, 5 years ago this week.

Corona del Mar High’s Megan Wachtler lives up to her No. 1 credentials

in the finals of the Junior Tennis Classic, hosted by the Balboa Bay Club

Racquet Club. Wachtler sweeps past Melissa Rosenthal, 6-1, 6-2, to claim the girls 18-and-under singles championship. Wachtler, who has bypassed

this tournament the previous two years, winds up against Rosenthal in the

finals after besting Eric Nelson in the semifinals, 6-4, 6-1. Wachtler

attains the championship before leaving for Columbus and Ohio State to

enter her freshman year of college. In another girls singles final, No. 2

seed Anne Yelsey upsets No. 1-seeded Yelena Olshanskaya in the 12s, 6-3,

6-1. Yelsey is also a winner in the doubles competition, sharing the

court with Lindsey Nelson, who topples Aimee Kim and Gina Le, then go on

to top the Bjorkman-Dao combination in the finals, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6. Also

winning girls doubles are Erica Nelson and Brooke Taylor, a Newport

Harbor High doubles combination which puts away Alissa Scott and Michelle

Johnson, then posts a 6-2, 7-6 championship decider over Jennifer Donahue

and Erin Smith. Taylor, an All-Sea View League choice as a junior, is on

the horizon of her senior season at Harbor, while Nelson, also an

all-league choice for the Sailors, will be a junior. In girls 16 doubles

CdM’s Amanda Collopy and Newport Harbor’s Chelsea Godbey team up for a

finals berth, but lose in the title match to a Tomkiewicz/Blashaw tandem,

6-4, 6-3.

All-Newport-Mesa District and All-Sea View League running back Tom

O’Meara highlights the 12th annual lift-a-thon fund-raiser at the

Touchdown Club Fieldhouse/Dave Holland Training Center. The lift-a-thon

is when players gather per-pound pledges to correspond with each’s

maximum squat lift. O’Meara, who rushes for 1,454 yards and a school

single-season record 19 touchdowns as a junior, squats 600 pounds, twice.

O’Meara’s efforts produce $1,338 for the program, collecting pledges

totaling $2.23 per pound. Runner-up laurels go to starting center Curt

Ellison, who tops out at 500 pounds.

Looking back, 10 years ago this week.

Newport Beach’s Richie Collins finishes runner-up to Australian Barton

Lynch in the Op Pro Surfing Championship final, but Collins and Brad

Gerlach ride waves to no cost in a breathtaking semifinal, which Collins

wins. “It should have been the final,” Collins says after his 83-67

victory over Gerlach, who enters the event rated No. 1 on the ASP

(Association of Surfing Professionals) world tour. Gerlach, who attended

Huntington Beach High, surfs so well that he preserves his No. 1 status

on the tour, having won at two of the preceding three world-tour stops.

But, Collins steals the show in the Op final, edging past Gerlach in the

dramatic semifinal.

The Newport Beach Dukes tennis team remains alive for the final

playoff spot in TeamTennis’ West Division by defeating the San Antonio

Racquets, 26-23. The Dukes halt San Antonio’s league-record 13-match

winning streak. Newport Beach clinches the victory in mixed doubles when

Tim Pawsat and Manon Bollegrat edge Gretchen Mayers and Peter Doohand of

San Antonio, 6-5. The Dukes would have been eliminated had they lost to

the Racquets. Newport Beach loses, 26-24, in the match previous, to the

Sacramento Capitals, 26-24, forcing the must-win situation for the Dukes.

Corona del Mar High’s Keri Phebus has her fantasy become reality as

she plays against tennis star Stefan Edberg in a doubles exhibition

match. In the “Kings of the Court,” for the National Foundation of

Wheelchair Tennis, Phebus, who is contacted at the last minute to fill a

player void in the match, teams with CdM resident Dan Lachman. Phebus

holds her own, but her team loses, 6-4, to Edberg and Jim Black in the

One Up, One Down Exhibition. “It was an experience of a lifetime,” Phebus

says. “Regardless of what I ever do in tennis, I’ll always remember

this.”

-- compiled by Steve Virgen