Corona del Mar rules semifinal

Bryce Alderton

A return to Division I has brought out the best in the Corona del Mar

High boys tennis team and at the most opportune time.

The undefeated Sea Kings (23-0) continued their stranglehold over

every team they have encountered this season, claiming a 14-4 victory

over visiting Peninsula Thursday in a CIF Southern Section Division I

semifinal. The win sets up a date in the Division I final with Santa

Barbara on Wednesday at the Claremont Club at 11 a.m. Santa Barbara

beat Los Alamitos, 11-7, Thursday.

Top-seeded CdM, which spent the previous two seasons in Division

V, swept all six sets to open the match, 6-0, and led, 10-2, after

the second round was complete, sealing Thursday’s victory before the

third sequence of rotations even began.

Peninsula Coach Mike Hoeger’s strategy of stacking his singles

field backfired, as CdM senior Garrett Snyder and sophomore Wesley

Miller each swept their three sets. Snyder won, 6-1, 6-1, 6-2, while

Miller had victories of 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.

“Wesley was the key to victory, he beat [Trevor] Dobson, 6-4, so

that helped us out,” Snyder said.

Dobson, a sophomore who stands roughly 6-foot-3, played No. 1

singles Thursday, but struggled with his serve, which hurt his

chances against the likes of Snyder, who remained undefeated in team

matches this season.

Snyder will attempt to add a CIF individual singles title to go

with two doubles titles he has won the past two seasons when he plays

in the Round of 16 today at SeaCliff Country Club in Huntington Beach

at 1 p.m.

When asked what is more important -- a team or individual

championship -- Snyder was quick with a response.

“The No. 1 goal is the team,” he said. “That is what high school

tennis is all about.”

Snyder said this year’s team might be better than the 2001 group,

which went 23-0 to claim the Division V crown.

“Our closest match this year has been 12-6 and everyone is playing

well,” Snyder said. “Our doubles guys are winning close matches.”

CdM has defeated three opponents by 12-6 counts, including against

Peninsula in March. All other matches have been by margins greater

than that.

The Sea Kings’ doubles tandems again gave Coach Tim Mang reason to

relax a bit after the second sets.

Sophomore Carsten Ball and junior Brennan Roberts won all three of

their sets, 6-3, while seniors Bryan Warsaw and Issei Saida swept,

6-4, 7-5, 6-4.

Ball and Roberts trailed, 3-1, to Jason Dauer and Neel Patil in

the second set before running off five straight games to close out

the set.

“We just had to keep going,” Ball said when asked what changed the

momentum in the set.

“We knew we were going to play our best,” Roberts added.

Equally impressive for Mang was the performance of sophomore

doubles teammates Alex Nguyen and Nicholas Gingold. The duo clinched

a 6-3 victory over Patil and Dobson in the first set Thursday,

breaking to go up, 5-3, on a forehand winner by Nguyen.

Both Nguyen and Gingold were active at the net, returning volleys

both backhand and forehand to seal the win.

“They finally put it together,” Mang said about Gingold and

Nguyen. “They got aggressive the last few points and that was key.

“[Peninsula] could have won the last three sets [of the first

round] and this thing would have been nervous time,” Mang said.

Jumping to a 6-0 lead sealed the fate for Peninsula (20-4),

according to Hoeger.

“The suspense was all gone with a 6-0 lead,” he said.

CdM sophomore Spencer Reitz won his opening set, 6-4, over Whitney

Reed, the only Peninsula player in Hoeger’s singles’ lineup Thursday

who competed in singles in the teams’ regular-season match.

“We stacked our doubles the first time and were fairly successful,

so we felt that if we didn’t give [CdM] any struggle in singles, we

were not going to win,” Hoeger said. “We only lost four times this

year, twice to CdM and twice to Beverly Hills. CdM is the better

team.”

CIF Division I

Semifinals

CdM 14, Peninsula 4

Singles -- Snyder (CdM) def. Dobson, 6-1, def. Reed, 6-1, def.

Guice, 6-2; Miller (CdM) won, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3; Reitz (CdM) lost, 3-6,

2-6, won, 6-4.

Doubles -- Gingold-Nguyen (CdM) def. Dauer-Patil, 6-3, lost to

Hsu-Fukugaki, 3-6, lost to subs (Bhagat-Tsai), 6-7; Ball-Roberts

(CdM) won, 6-3, 6-3, def. Miyawaki-Comstock, 6-3; Warsaw-Saida (CdM)

def subs Reit-Barua, 6-4, won, 6-4, 7-5.