Tennis 10th at National Tourney

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

Facing its toughest competition of the season, Palisades High’s boys tennis team rose to the occasion last weekend in Orange County, playing four close matches, winning two of them and reaching the consolation final at the 22nd annual National All-American Invitational.

Palisades finished 10th out of 16 teams in a field that featured schools from Northen and Southern California, Hawaii, Arizona, Connecticut, Maryland and Tennessee.   

“It was fun, the boys played well  and we had a great time,” Pali High Coach Bud Kling said. “Two of the matches could’ve gone either way and this experience will definitely help us down the road in playoffs.”

Palisades opened the tournament Friday morning against Gunn from Palo Alto and the Dolphins lost on games, 56-47, after a 4-4 tie in sets.

Jex Frankel won a tiebreaker at No. 1 singles and Neel Joshi won 8-6 at No. 2, but the Titans took the last three singles matches. Palisades  notched two of the three doubles points, with Frankel and Joshi pairing to win 8-6 at the No. 1 spot and Peter Garff partnering with Connor Wootton to win 8-4 at No. 3.

The loss dropped Palisades into the consolation bracket, where that afternoon it took on Clovis East—which it had defeated 5-1 en route to winning the  Division I championship at the California Classic in Clovis on March 4—and this time the Dolphins prevailed 6-2. All three doubles teams swept and  Joshi, Adham and Todd Valkov won in singles to secure the quarterfinal win. In the morning match Saturday, Palisades faced Brophy Prep from Phoenix, the reigning Arizona 5A state champion, and the Dolphins prevailed by one game, 36-35, after each team won eight sets. Frankel, Joshi and Adham won in singles but but only the top tandem of Frankel and Joshi were able to secure a point in doubles. On Saturday afternoon, at University High in Irvine, Kling and his squad met Studio City Harvard-Westlake for ninth place in a rematch of the 2017 championship match when Palisades prevailed 6-3.

This time, the Dolphins were the underdogs but they got a boost when Frankel beat the Wolverines’ No. 1 player Christian Stubbeman in a tiebreaker. Joshi won 6-3 at the No. 2 position, but Adham, Valkov and Luc Jesuele dropped their sets at the three, four and five singles spots so Pailsades trailed 3-2 heading to the doubles. Needing to win two out of three sets while making up a deficit in games in the process, Palisades got off to a good start as Frankel and Joshi won 6-4. Joshi finished the tournament unblemished, winning all eight matches he played (four singles, four doubles) while Frankel went 7-1 at the No. 1 spot and earned All-Tournament honors.

Palisades’ No. 2 and No. 3 doubles teams fell and Palisades lost, 5-3.Punahou of Honolulu edged irvine University for the championship.