CdM earns rematch
A year after finishing fourth in the Pacific Coast League and missing the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs, the Corona del Mar High boys’ tennis team is back in the Division 1 quarterfinals.
Call it the Elite Eight. Elite is a good word for the talent on the Sea Kings this season. A program that made the Division 1 title match as recently as 2012 and ’13 is back on the radar.
“It feels really good,” CdM sophomore Ryan Wessler said after the Sea Kings routed Santa Barbara, 14-4, in the second round on Friday afternoon at the CdM courts. “It reasserts ourselves as one of the tennis superpowers in CIF.”
What beating Santa Barbara also did was earn CdM an anticipated rematch against Mira Costa. The Sea Kings (17-4) will travel to Manhattan Beach to play at the No. 4-seeded Mustangs in the quarterfinals on Monday. Mira Costa beat Beverly Hills, 12-6, in another second-round match.
Corona del Mar feels Monday’s match is winnable, though the Sea Kings lost to Mira Costa, 10-8, in a nonleague match on March 10. Mira Costa swept in doubles in that match, so the Sea Kings need improvement on that front. But the Sea Kings also look forward to facing Mira Costa again emotionally, after the first match got heated late on both sides.
It happened while CdM senior co-captain Bjorn Hoffmann was playing Mira Costa’s No. 2 singles player, Wessler said.
“He was getting in Bjorn’s face a little bit over some not too match-changing points,” Wessler said. “[CdM senior co-captain] Pedro [Fernandez del Valle] took that personally and started asking who this guy was, because Bjorn was up 4-0 at the time, I think.”
Even the normally stoic Hoffmann got riled up, CdM junior Matt Paulsen said.
“I’ve never seen Bjorn that heated in a match,” Paulsen said. “It was just to get back at that guy ... He was not a good sport at all.”
It remains to be seen if Monday’s match will have that kind of fireworks. What the Sea Kings can’t afford to do is get swept in doubles again.
CdM Coach Jamie Gresh feels good about the way his doubles teams are performing headed into the next round, though. The teams of Wessler and Paulsen, as well as sophomore Jacob Cooper and freshman Diego Fernandez del Valle, both swept against Channel League champion Santa Barbara (12-5).
It was Cooper and Fernandez del Valle who earned a 7-6 (7-2) victory over the Dons’ Taggart Mills and Harry deBoer in the first round, helping CdM take a 5-1 lead in sets.
The match was clinched fairly quickly after that. Hoffmann, Pedro Fernandez del Valle and freshman Kyle Pham combined to win eight of nine singles sets. Each score ranged from 6-0 to 6-2.
Paulsen and Wessler earned their own tiebreaker victory in the final round. They rallied from a 4-2 deficit in the tiebreaker to claim a 7-6 (7-4) win over Santa Barbara’s Spencer Ekola and Logan Lender.
“Today my volleys were on fire, and [Wessler’s] serve was really good,” Paulsen said. “It just kind of worked out in that way. Today was probably the best I’ve played this entire season, to be honest. It was kind of a warmup for Monday. Mira Costa’s doubles teams are really good, and they swept last time we played them, [but] I think if I play like [I played today] that I can beat them.”
Corona del Mar was ranked No. 6 in the final Division 1 poll, but had to be on the other side of the bracket from No. 2-seeded Pacific Coast League champion University. Gresh was originally concerned that CdM would be moved down to No. 8, but they actually moved up one spot to No. 5, thus drawing the favorable quarterfinal match against Mira Costa.
“They’re pretty strong, but it’s kind of exactly what we wanted, to get this rematch,” Gresh said. “I feel like my singles guys are playing well, and the doubles are totally different [from the first meeting]. Obviously, Diego wasn’t [eligible yet], and all of the teams are totally different. They still have three very good teams, but we’re not like putting in the same exact lineup. We’re playing a totally different lineup, so maybe that will help out.”
