Sea Kings hope to avenge lone defeat

Rick Devereux

Forget about the Oakland Raiders, the Corona del Mar High boys tennis

team has the real commitment to excellence.

The Sea Kings have won 10 CIF Southern Section championships and

27 league titles.

No. 3-seeded CdM (20-1) will play host to No. 2 Santa Barbara

(23-1) today at 2 p.m. in the CIF Southern Section Division I

semifinals.

“We have our tradition,” Coach Tim Mang said. “There is a certain

amount of expectation here to win. Our top players know it and work

hard at achieving it.”

The last time the Sea Kings played Santa Barbara at CdM in a

semifinal match, the Dons prevailed, 6-3, in this year’s Corona del

Mar national high school invitational tournament March 26. It was

CdM’s lone loss of the year.

But the format in that tournament was an eight-game pro-set, and

the Dons were able to use their No. 1 player, Blake Muller, in both

singles and doubles.

The high school round-robin format favors depth, which CdM has.

“I think we have an advantage with this format,” Mang said. “We

have more depth, especially in doubles.”

The Sea Kings boast the Pacific Coast League doubles champions in

Spencer Reitz and Matt Chou, as well as the league runners-up in Sean

Pham and Alex Nguyen.

Mang has shuffled the doubles lineups in the playoffs. Reitz has

partnered with Jonathan Kroopf and Chou has partnered with Ryan

Caughren while Pham and Nguyen are the No. 1 tandem. The new-look

doubles teams have gone a combined 17-1 in the playoffs, and Mang

expects the success to continue.

“My three doubles teams are all close and strong,” he said. “We

should take [Santa Barbara’s] No. 2 and 3 doubles teams. That’s six

points right there. Our No. 1 singles against their No. 1 is a

tossup.”

Wesley Miller is CdM’s No. 1 singles player. The senior went 31-1

in regular-season dual matches en route to a league championship. He

is ranked No. 7 by the United States Tennis Association in the 18s.

The Dons counter with Muller, the Ojai tournament runner-up and

who will attend Stanford next year. Muller defeated Miller, 8-5, in

the CdM national invitational tournament. Muller is ranked No. 60 in

USTA 18s.

Mang said a key to the match will be getting as many points as

possible out of freshman singles player Fabian Matthews. Matthews is

4-2 in the playoffs, but is ranked No. 87 in USTA 16s and has been a

solid contributor to CdM’s success all season.

Mang said he is confident the upper classmen for the Sea Kings

will respond to the challenge of facing Santa Barbara and advancing

to the finals against the winner of the other semifinal between

Woodbridge and top-seeded Harvard-Westlake.

“I know our seniors want to go out on top,” Mang said. “We know

that a whole year of practice comes down to two matches.”

The tradition of success is hard to replicate year after year.

“I’m not happy if we end up losing in the semifinals, and I know the

kids won’t be either,” Mang said. “We should win.”