Pali High Tennis Reaches All-American Final

If there’s a higher level, send them.

Although an eighth straight City Section title is still the primary goal for the Palisades High boys tennis team, the Dolphins placed the utmost importance on Friday and Saturday’s National High School All-American Invitational because they embraced the opportunity to show that they are not merely the top team in Los Angeles, but the entire nation.

Palisades was seeded second out of 16 schools and at the end of the two-day tournament hosted by Corona del Mar, the Dolphins could hold their heads high after finishing second to defending champion Torrey Pines.

“This meant the most to us because these are the best teams in the country, so it would’ve been the biggest achievement by far,” said Pali High senior and No. 1 player Ben Goldberg, the reigning City Individual singles champion. “I thought we were probably going to get the third seed, but winning [the California Classic] in Fresno and beating the top two teams in NorCal is what got us the No. 2 seed.”

The match format consisted of five singles and three doubles pro sets (each worth one point) with the first team to five points advancing to the next round. In the event of a 4-4 tie, total games were counted to determine the winner. Players were allowed to participate in both singles and doubles.

“This format suits our team very well because we have great depth throughout our lineup,” the UCLA-bound Goldberg said. “It was so much fun to play doubles because I don’t get to do that much in high school. It was a great atmosphere and I had so much fun.”

Palisades opened on Friday morning against Horace Mann of Riverdale, NY and the Dolphins swept all five singles matches.

Goldberg, ranked in the top 10 in Southern California in the 18-and-unders, set the tone with an 8-6 victory over the Lions’ best player Calvin Chung.

Sophomore Jake Sands, ranled No. 2 in SoCal in the 16s, defeated Horace Mann’s Connor Morris 8-1 at No. 2 singles, Lucas Bellamy won 8-4 at No. 3 singles, RJ Sands won 8-2 at No. 4 and Diego Huttepain blanked the Lions’ No. 5 player Ike Kilinc 8-0.

With victory already secured, Palisades head coach Bud Kling subbed his top players out of doubles, giving them a chance to recuperate for the next round.

“The plan was for us to play as many guys as we possibly could in the first match so everyone gets a chance to experience this,” said Kling, who admitted this is his best team since the late 1990s when the Dolphins were captained by Post Cup Award winner Danny Westerman, who went on to play at the University of Wisconsin and is now the Badgers’ head coach. “We still got one of the three points in doubles, which was a good sign.”

Senior Jared Fong paired with freshman Henry Lovett to prevail 8-6 in a tiebreaker at the No. 1 spot, but Jack Harrington and Julian Patterson lost 8-4 at No. 2 and Jackson Novak teamed with Jason Freedland to lose by the same score at No. 3.

Two hours later, the Dolphins were back on the court to take on host Corona del Mar in the quarterfinals. The Sea Kings ousted Phillips Academy of Andover, Mass. 6-2 in the first round.

This time, doubles matches were played first and Palisades took two of the three, as RJ Sands and Huttepain won 8-3 at No. 2 and Fong and Lovett winning 8-1 in the No. 3 position.

Goldberg and Jake Sands lost 7-5 in a tiebreaker to the No. 1 duo of Bjorn Hoffman and Pedro Fernandez.

Hoffman, a Cal commit, beat Goldberg 8-4 at No. 1 singles and Fernandez came from a break down to defeat Jake Sands 8-6 at No. 2, but Bellamy won 8-3 at No. 3, RJ Sands won 8-2 at No. 4 and Huttepain won 8-1 at No. 5 to complete the Dolphins’ 5-3 triumph.

In the semifinals on Saturday morning, the Dolphins faced third-seeded San Marino, the defending Southern Section Division II champion.

“The tournament director said it was literally a coin flip to decide who should be the No. 2 seed – us or them,” Kling said.”We figured if we could win the doubles and split the top four in singles, we would win.”

The Dolphins did notch two of the three doubles points, as Goldberg and Jake Sands won 8-5 at the No. 1 spot against the Titans’ duo of Connor Lee (ranked 12th in SoCal in the 18s) and Bryce Pereira (who won the 16s doubles title last year at the USTA National Championships in Kalamazoo, Mich.

Fong and Lovett won 8-2 at No.3 but RJ Sands and Huttepain lost 8-2 at No. 2.

Goldberg predicted the singles would be “a dogfight” and he was right. He lost to Pereira 8-3 at No. 1 singles, but Jake Sands rallied to beat junior Ryan Cheng  8-6 at No. 2 and Bellamy upset Lee 8-5 at No. 3. RJ Sands lost 7-2 in a tiebreaker at No. 4, but Huttepain won 8-3 at No. 5 to make the final tally 5-3 in the Dolphins’ favor.

“I know their top four guys really well and we’re all pretty good friends,” Goldberg said. “We play each other at USTA events throughout the year, but it’s a different kind of pressure playing for your school. I knew it would take a great effort because they’re stacked.”

Sunday afternoon’s best-of-nine championship match at the Palisades Tennis Club in Newport Beach pitted the No. 2-seeded Dolphins against top-seeded Torrey Pines from the San Diego Section, a formidable squad loaded with ranked players.

Torrey Pines, which defeated Atherton Menlo 7-2 in last year’s final, had cruised through its half of the draw, easily dispatching Gilman School of Baltimore, Md., Studio City Harvard-Westlake and Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Although it competed hard,  Palisades was swept in doubles and lost 6-3 – its first defeat of the season.

“The result was a combination of them being very good and us not playing our best,” Kling said. “We knew we’d have to be at our best to beat them, but our guys were tired and several of them had just played [USTA] tournaments. Still, we took more points off them than anyone else and I like that two public schools made the finals.”

Goldberg, who two days earlier upset top-seeded Luke Hammond of Great Britain in three grueling sets on his way to the quarterfinals of the ITF Newport Beach Bowl, was exhausted by the time he took the court against  the Falcons’ No. 1 player Jacob Brumm, one of the top juniors in the country. Brumm won 8-4, but Jake Sands beat Army-bound Nikita Pereverzin (No. 32 in SoCal in the 18s) 8-3 at No. 2 singles and Bellamy beat Daniel Delatorre 8-7 (7-4 in the tiebreaker)   at No. 3 singles.

RJ Sands  lost to Alexander Rushin 8-2 at the No. 4 spot and Huttepain lost to Sreeganesh Manoharan 8-4 at No. 5. Lovett beat fellow freshman Matthew Sah 8-6 at No. 6 singles.

“We split with them in singles, but they dominated in doubles,” Kling said. “We just couldn’t get anything going.”

Goldberg and Jake Sands lost to Brumm and Pereverzin 8-3, RJ Sands and Huttepain dropped the last five games to Delatorre and Rushin to fall 8-3 and Fong and Lovett lost 8-2 to Manoharan and Sah.

“Everyone had a great time and the best part is that we’ve already been invited back to play next year,” said Kling, who has piloted Palisades’ boys program since 1979. “We have a long way to go, but we still have a lot of goals in front of us – winning City, doing well at Ojai and getting as far as we can in regionals. This should help us get a higher seed.”

— Steve Galluzzo