Sea Kings beaten in semis

Chris Yemma

The third-seeded Corona del Mar High girls tennis team was aiming for

the top, but came up one notch short, losing in the semifinals of the

CIF Southern Section Division I playoffs to visiting Calabasas, 11-7,

Thursday afternoon.

Second-seeded Calabasas (20-0) will play in the championship match

against Peninsula (21-0) Monday at the Claremont Club.

For Thursday’s semifinal match, Sea Kings’ Coach Brian Ricker

tweaked his lineup a bit to compensate for Calabasas’ dominant

singles players. He moved Alexandra Walters, who usually is the No. 2

singles player, to No. 3 doubles with Michelle Atkins. He also moved

No. 1 singles player Jill Damion to No. 3 singles.

“We’re trying some strategy here,” Ricker said during the match.

“It’s our only choice; they’re too strong on singles.”

Ricker said he was hoping to win most, if not all, of the doubles

sets and was expecting to give up most of the singles -- a strategy

he tried in last season’s quarterfinals, when he coached Laguna Beach

against Calabasas.

The Sea Kings (18-4) won 6 of 9 doubles sets, but only took one

singles set -- a 6-0 Damion win over the Coyotes’ No. 3 player, Erin

Wieseher.

And not only did Calabasas take eight singles sets, it swept six

of them. If it would have come down to a 9-9 tie, which, at one

point, appeared possible, Calabasas would have easily won on games.

Damion, along with the doubles team of Hayley Young and Jami

Steele, both lost tiebreakers, 7-6, that could have gone either way.

“I should have won that second match,” Damion said. “This was the

toughest and by far the best singles team we’ve played.”

Coyotes’ senior No. 1 singles player Amanda Fink, who Damion lost

to, 6-3, in her final set, is ranked No. 16 in the nation in girls

18s and recently signed a letter of intent to play for USC.

She swept her sets, 6-0, 6-0, 6-3.

The Sea Kings are expected to be strong next season. Seniors

Steele and Roxanne Kaiden are the only players not returning, and the

Sea Kings are hoping to add a couple of dominant freshmen.

“I thoroughly enjoyed the season,” Ricker said. “We’re only losing

a couple of seniors, and the next couple of years are looking strong

for CdM.

“The train’s rolling in the right direction and I’m very

optimistic for next season.”

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CIF Division I Semifinal

Calabasas 11, Corona del Mar 7

Singles -- Kaiden (CdM) lost to Fink, 0-6, lost to McVitty, 0-6, lost to Wieseher, 0-6; Norman (CdM) lost, 0-6, 0-6, 0-6; Damion (CdM) won, 6-0, lost, 6-7, 3-6. Doubles -- H.Young-Steele (CdM) lost to Kolpakor-E. Chang, 6-7, def. Bernstein-T. Harper,

6-1, def. Schnitman-B. Harper, 6-4; M. Young-Miller (CdM) won, 6-1, lost, 3-6, won, 6-1; Walters-Atkins (CdM) lost, 4-6, won, 6-3, 6-1.

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