Stringing Along

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

Moments after Jack Harrington and partner Tomas Huttepain finished off their 6-3 victory over Granada Hills’ Yussof  Khalilian and David Yang two hours into last Friday afternoon’s match at Balboa Sports Center, Palisades High teammates rushed the court to congratulate them for clinching the Dolphins’ record 10th consecutive City Section tennis championship.

The Dolphins’ No. 1 doubles duo swept its three sets, including a 6-3 win against Granada Hills’ top tandem of Sebastian Prokic and Shaan Londhe that set the tone for Palisades’ 17-12.5 triumph.

“It’s a huge win and it’s the most special for me because it’s the last one,” said Harrington, a senior who has won City every year he has worn the blue and white. “We’ve always had deep doubles teams that are capable of winning. It’s been four years of hard work but it’s been worth it. I love playing with Tomas—we’ve played together a lot during the season and we’re playing together in Individuals.”

Pali High Coach Bud Kling predicted the outcome would be decided in doubles after the Highlanders dropped two singles players down to strengthen the bottom of their lineup. Two dramatic turnarounds late in the first round turned the tide in Palisades’ favor.

Serving for the set at 5-4, Palisades’ No. 2 doubles team of Adam Glickman and Souma Hayakama was broken by the Highlanders’ No. 2 tandem of Sam Blumkin and Aryan Salian, who proceeded to take a 40-15 lead in the next game. However, the Dolphins’ duo won three straight points to break back and held serve for a 7-5 win. At No. 3 doubles, freshman Lucas Trepagnier and sophomore Matt Webber rallied from a 4-2 deficit to win 6-4 and put the top-seeded Dolphins ahead to stay.

“Those two matches were the difference,” said Kling, who won his 44th City crown (26 with the boys, 18 with the girls) since taking  over the program in 1979. “We needed one of those and got both.”

It seemed only fitting that the winningest school in City history  also captured the section’s inaugural Open Division boys title, matching the accomplishment of the Dolphins’ girls squad in the fall. Palisades has won 36 City boys titles and its current streak doubles the previous mark of five in a row shared by Palisades and El Camino Real.    

“It’s humbling to win 10 straight—especially when your top three  returners don’t play,” said Kling, who has amassed 1,196 career wins—49 shy of the state and national record held by Robin Adair of Coronado. “Once we swept the first round of doubles we knew it would take a disaster in singles for them to win. A lot of coaching went into this one. We had seven new starters in the lineup this year and were still able to continue our legacy of success. This isn’t the most talented team I’ve ever had but it’s one of the most satisfying because we won with 10 kids who were willing to listen and work hard.”

The teams split the 16 singles points, each winning eight sets, but Palisades took six of nine on the doubles courts (each worth 1.5 points) to deal the second-seeded Highlanders their fourth straight finals defeat.

Glickman and Hayakama split their last two sets, beating Yang and Khalilian 6-0 and losing to Prokic and Londhe 6-2, while Trepagnier and Webber lost to Granada Hills’ No. 1 and No. 2 teams by 6-2 scores.

It was the closest City final since 2014 when Palisades edged El Camino Real by the narrowest possible margin, 15-14.5, for its sixth straight title in 2014. In the end, no one cared how wide the victory was because, as Webber shouted before heading to the post-match pizza party at Kling’s house off Las Lomas: “A win is a win!”     

Making the Dolphins’ latest achievement more improbable was that they did it without No. 1 player Diego Huttepain, who was suspended by Kling for disciplinary reasons at the National All-American Tournament in March and hasn’t played since. Palisades rolled over fourth-seeded Cleveland 25-4.5 in last Wednesday’s semifinals at the Palisades Tennis Center, where the host Dolphins claimed eight of the nine doubles sets from the West Valley league runner-up.

“Retirement has been good to me,” joked Kling, who got a bucket of ice water thrown over his head after the medal ceremony. “That 2009 team started the streak which is significant because 2008 is the year I stopped teaching. So since then, we haven’t lost. This is the first time in awhile the score hasn’t been in the twenties… in the past it’s been much more decisive. It just goes to show that it may look easy, but it’s not. A lot of things have to go right to win this many in a row.”

Western League champion Palisades improved to 22-2, its only two losses to Monta Vista and Corona del Mar at the National All-American Tournament, where the Dolphins placed 11th out of 16 schools.    

Granada Hills seniors Karapet Vardanyan and Daniel Lin both swept their four singles matches, but neither Andrew Kang nor fellow sophomore Alex La was able to pick up a point at the No. 3 and No. 4 spots for the Highlanders.

Playing No. 1 singles for the Dolphins was sophomore Lincoln Bellamy, who paired with Harrington to earn the title-clinching point against Blumkin and Yang last year before going on to win the City Individual doubles title with Henry Lovett, who skipped the high school season this year to  focus on junior tournaments.

After losing to Vardanyan 6-3, Bellamy bounced back with 6-0 victories over Kang and La before  battling a bad shoulder in a 7-6 (4) loss to Lin, who survived five match points.

“We knew their No. 1 and No. 2 players were supposed to sweep so the match mostly relied on doubles points,” said Bellamy, whose older brother Lucas won the City Individual singles title last spring and is now a freshman at UCLA. “I should’ve won the tiebreaker, I just missed easy shots. Last year we were real top heavy and didn’t need to worry about anything. This year is more team-oriented.”    

Junior Danilo Milic won two of his four sets at No. 2 singles.

“At first we thought the No. 3 guy (Prokic) would play singles, but he played doubles,” Milic said. “I tried my best against the No. 1 and No. 2 but give them credit, they’re good players. I didn’t want to let the team down. It’s very important to keep the streak going.”

At No. 3 singles, freshman Atticus Parker gave Lin all he could handle before falling 7-5. He split his other two sets, blanking Kang  6-0 and losing to Vardanyan 6-2.

“I’m normally a slow starter but in this one-set format I knew I couldn’t do that today,” Parker said. “I have confidence I can win from any position. No-ad scoring gives you a better chance to beat someone better than you.”

Nick Arvin routed Kang and La by 6-0 scores at No. 4 singles. With victory secure, Kling subbed in junior Ishaan Lal and senior captain Ethan Subel for the final round. Lal beat La 6-2 and Subel was cheered by his teammates after taking a game from Lin.