Boys’ Tennis: Panthers too strong for CdM

ROLLING HILLS ESTATES — Pedro Fernandez del Valle has done a lot of winning in his high school tennis career.

As a freshman at Corona del Mar High, Fernandez del Valle helped the Sea Kings reach the CIF Southern Section Division 1 title match in 2013. He then moved to Florida, where he contributed to state championship teams at Wiregrass Ranch High the past two years.

Now Fernandez del Valle is back at CdM, and he again has lofty aspirations.

“I’m super-excited to come back to CdM,” he said Tuesday. “I feel we have a good chance of winning CIF.”

But host Palos Verdes Peninsula High showed the Sea Kings that improvement will be necessary to reach that level.

The Panthers swept the first round on their way to beating CdM, 12-6, in a nonleague match.

CdM’s two senior co-captains, Cal-commit Bjorn Hoffmann and Fernandez del Valle, each won twice in singles for CdM (2-1), which suffered its first loss of the young season. Peninsula, which won the La Jolla Country Day tournament over the weekend, improved to 2-0 in dual-match play.

“They’re very deep,” CdM Coach Jamie Gresh said. “I thought we played really well today, actually. I just think this team is better than us. It’s kind of good to get an assessment of where our team is at this early in the season, so I’m happy with seeing what we need to work on. We’ve just got to get a little bit more match tough. There were a few sets that we lost 5-7 or 6-7 and to turn those around, it just comes down to a handful of points.”

Peninsula, which advanced to the Division 1 quarterfinals last season before losing on games to eventual champion Los Alamitos, certainly started Tuesday’s match strong. The Panthers went up 6-0 after the first round.

Three of the sets were very close, but they all went the hosts’ way. At No. 1 singles, Peninsula’s Connor Hance raced out to a 4-0 advantage and held on to edge Hoffmann, 6-4. And the Panthers also got two tiebreaker wins in doubles. The No. 1 team of Sahm Irvine and Will Mori edged CdM’s Oliver Kim and John Hart, 7-6 (7-5), while Peninsula’s Louis Hoeger and Ryan Mori beat CdM’s Ryan Wessler and Kyle Pham, 7-6 (7-2), at No. 3 doubles.

Peninsula’s starting doubles teams, which also included the No. 2 tandem of Shoma Kishimoto and Jeff Tan, were undefeated on the day. Hance and Daunte Harris won twice in singles, while Dariush Jalali won once. Peninsula Coach Mike Hoeger said that Hance, who like Hoffmann is one of the top junior players in Southern California, drove back to Peninsula on Tuesday morning after pulling out of pre-qualifiers for the BNP Paribas Open tournament at Indian Wells.

Even Jalali, though, battled Hoffmann in a close 6-4 set in the third round.

“It’s nice having a really strong No. 3,” Hoeger said. “Dariush is going to beat most No. 3s, and he can beat a lot of No. 2s as well. That is nice. The pressure is a little bit more on the doubles coming through, and they did today ... I was very happy with the way our guys came through in the clutch in the first round.”

Peninsula clinched the match with 10-2 advantage after two rounds.

The Sea Kings won two doubles sets, both in the third round. Wessler and Pham, as well as Grant Brown and Max Bui, each beat substitute Peninsula teams.

CdM is looking for improvement after finishing fourth in the Pacific Coast League last year, failing to qualify for CIF. The lineup is revamped, as it also includes Pham, a freshman. And Fernandez del Valle’s younger brother Diego, a sophomore, will be eligible to play in early April after the 30-day sit-out period. The younger Fernandez del Valle lived in France last year.

Pedro Fernandez del Valle called his younger brother the team’s “secret weapon.”

“He’s a very good player and he’s going to add more [depth] to our team,” Fernandez del Valle said. “We have a lot of talent and potential on this team, we just need to close the matches as we have the opportunities. It will come as the season progresses.”

Hoffmann, who is now 8-1 in singles this season for CdM, agreed with that sentiment.

“To win today, I think we all had to play at our highest level,” he said. “I thought we competed hard. There were a lot of close sets in the first round that could have gone either way. I think everyone tried their best and there were a lot of close sets, so I don’t think we can complain too much.”

CdM plays host to Palos Verdes in another nonleague match on Thursday.