CdM falls in semis
For the second straight season, the San Marino High boys’ tennis team traveled to Orange County for a CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoff semifinal match.
Last year, the Titans were eliminated at top-seeded eventual champion Los Alamitos, 10-8. Coach Melwin Pereira remembers it well. He found the atmosphere in Wednesday’s match at Corona del Mar more to his liking.
“It was a very hostile environment last year,” Pereira said. “But this year, right here? Oh my gosh, it’s so classy here [at CdM]. I did not expect it to be so calm.”
Pereira came over to the Sea Kings after the match ended, telling them, “You guys are classy, man,” itself a classy gesture.
Of course, this time Pereira had reason to smile. This year, his team is the top seed.
San Marino beat CdM, 11-7, to advance to the Division 1 title match. The Titans will play No. 3-seeded Peninsula, an 11-7 winner over University, in the title match Friday at 11:30 a.m. at The Claremont Club.
Top-seeded San Marino (16-1), which won the Division 2 title in 2013 and ‘14, is going for its third CIF crown in four years. On Friday the Titans have a chance to avenge their only loss of the season, a 10-8 nonleague setback against Peninsula.
CdM (18-5) will have to take consolation in knowing that it has qualified for the CIF State Southern California Regional playoffs, which begin Tuesday.
The Sea Kings played fairly well on Wednesday, but not well enough against a deep San Marino team despite an impressive singles sweep by CdM senior co-captain Pedro Fernandez del Valle.
Fernandez del Valle beat NYU-bound San Marino senior Jacob Lui, 6-0. He then dispatched of San Marino junior Bryce Pereira, 6-3, and Yale-bound senior lefty Ryan Cheng, also 6-3.
“I knew that I had to win every single match, and I just used that to motivate me,” Fernandez del Valle said. “By holding my composure, which is usually kind of a sketchy thing for me, I thought the team would feel confident. I think that’s what they felt, but going against a very deep team like San Marino, it’s very hard. I think we played well, we competed well, we stayed classy. I’m very proud of the team.”
CdM was hoping for at least seven singles wins, but got just five. The Sea Kings did sweep Lui, as senior co-captain Bjorn Hoffmann also blanked him, 6-0, and freshman Kyle Pham topped him, 6-4. But CdM could garner no other singles sets.
The Cal-bound Hoffmann, who had come into Wednesday’s match with just two dual-match losses all year, doubled that amount. Bryce Pereira beat Hoffmann, 6-2, in the first round. Cheng beat him, 6-3, in the second round.
“Bjorn didn’t have the day he’d like to,” CdM Coach Jamie Gresh said. “I feel for him. He’d like to have that day back, for sure ... [but] he’s been pulling his weight all season to get us here. Mira Costa was no different. He was down a break to [No. 1 singles player] Alex Gaal and got through that set.
“I just don’t think he was feeling the ball that well. I think Bryce sliced and kept the ball lower, and Bjorn would rather play a higher, more of a topspin game. Bryce played a smart game plan against Bjorn, and then Bjorn had to rotate and play against Ryan Cheng, a lefty, totally different matchup. I think he just couldn’t change the tactics quickly and maybe carried over a little bit of that loss from the first round with him. But those two guys are very good players, and those were tossups all the way, those were 50-50 [sets].”
San Marino led, 4-2, after the first round, and 8-4 after the second round. The visitors clinched the match early in the third round with a pair of doubles wins.
Titans junior Connor Lee and freshman Leo Wang swept, 6-0, 6-0, 6-1, at No. 1 doubles. San Marino’s No. 2 doubles team of UC Irvine-bound senior Derek Chen and Coast Guard Academy-bound senior Arthur Wicke also swept, 6-2, 6-3, 6-3.
CdM’s doubles teams of Matt Paulsen and John Hart, as well as Diego Fernandez del Valle and Jacob Cooper, were each able to beat San Marino’s No. 3 team of John Carter and Tyler Tseng. But it wasn’t enough.
Melwin Pereira was impressed with Pedro Fernandez del Valle’s game. “I took notes on you, dude,” he told the University of Denver-bound senior after the match. “I want to learn.”
“High school tennis is tough,” Pereira said. “You’re playing three different styles, and we got lucky today with Bjorn. Who knows? But Pedro really picked it up for Bjorn, so it was sweet ... Pedro had an amazing [match]. Oh my God, an amazing [match]. This should pump them up to work harder. I want my team to learn from this, because my top players all lost to Pedro. It’s good for them; it will prepare them for the Peninsula match.”
CdM, which was making its first Division 1 semifinal appearance since advancing to the final in 2013, now will play in the SoCal Regionals for the first time since that year as well. Hoffmann and Pedro Fernandez del Valle are the only members of the team who have participated in the regionals before.
The Sea Kings will find out their first-round opponent over the weekend.
“We’ll have a light practice [Thursday], Friday off, then gear back up on Monday,” Gresh said. “We’ll hope we don’t have to make that long trip up to like Clovis or whatever. But it’s good to keep playing.
“I thought our guys really played well all season. It was just a really fun season. Sometimes that word gets lost in translation with top high school athletics, but it’s been a fun journey for me with these kids. To watch them get better at tennis players and do what’s expected of them, and then beyond that, I’m really proud of their development. Practices have been great, a lot of high-energy practices ... senior leadership’s been A-plus this year, and also an A-plus level of play from the top two seniors, Bjorn and Pedro.”
