McKennon bows out in CIF Individuals semis

SEAL BEACH — It could have been seen as a David against Goliath kind of matchup, although the height of the players involved muddles that analogy a bit.

At 6 feet 3, Newport Harbor High freshman Max McKennon has a few inches on Peninsula High senior Connor Hance. In tennis terms, however, the top-seeded Hance was the heavy favorite when the two met Saturday in the CIF Southern Section Individuals singles semifinals.

Hance showed why, breezing past McKennon, 6-2, 6-1, to end the Sailors freshman’s season in the final four.

Hance would later lose to No. 2-seeded Stefan Dostanic of Woodbridge, 6-1, 3-6, 6-4, in a CIF Individuals singles title match that took about three hours to complete. In doubles, San Marino’s Bryce Peirera and Connor Lee repeated as Individuals doubles champions after taking down Harvard-Westlake’s David Arkow and Timothy Li, 6-2, 6-3, in the title match.

With UCLA men’s tennis coach Billy Martin in attendance, the Westwood-bound Hance played nearly mistake-free tennis in the singles semifinal match against McKennon.

“He didn’t give me a whole lot,” McKennon said. “I didn’t even play that bad, he just made me hit a lot of balls. He has an unbelievable backhand. He’ll do great at UCLA next year.”

McKennon was unable to break Hance’s serve, and did not even earn a break point in the match. Hance had three of them midway through the first set, when McKennon found himself in a love-40 hole while serving at 1-2.

McKennon erased all three of the break points and got a game point. But from there, Hance won three straight points to break McKennon’s serve and earn the 3-1 advantage.

Hance broke McKennon’s serve again, this time at love, in the 5-2 game to grab the first set. He then raced out to a 5-0 advantage in the second set before McKennon got on the scoreboard. Still, he was complimentary of his opponent after the match.

“He’s really good for a freshman, really good for any high school player,” said Hance, a former Easter Bowl champion who won the prestigious Ojai tournament last year as a junior. “It was a tough match. I played pretty well, served good. It was tough, but I think I just won a lot of the important points. I was playing pretty good, so I think it was tough for him today.

“I just kind of played my game and tried to get balls back in the court, and it seemed to work pretty well.”

McKennon accomplished much as a freshman for the Sailors, occupying the No. 1 singles spot after working his way back from a left wrist injury. He made the quarterfinals at Ojai before losing to Dostanic, and helped Newport Harbor reach the semifinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 2 playoffs.

“What an incredible run for him in his freshman debut,” Sailors coach Kristen Case said. “We were all looking forward to seeing what he was going to do at the high school level, and I think he far surpassed his own and all of our expectations. He didn’t get beat in dual match play, which is incredible as a freshman. Going to the quarterfinals of Ojai and the semifinals here, and just being an instrumental leader on the court for our team, it meant a lot to all of the guys on our team. He’s been a great team player.”

McKennon has a busy summer of junior tennis lined up. On Sunday morning, he’s in the boys’ 16s semifinals of the Woody Hunt tournament at the Jack Kramer Club in Rolling Hills Estates. Later this month, McKennon will also play in the 16s at the Southern California Junior Sectionals tournament. McKennon recently moved up from the 14s after turning 15 last month.

Yes, there will be a lot of tennis played in the coming months, but McKennon will also remember his freshman year at Newport Harbor fondly.

“It was a great season,” he said. “The team did awesome. It was a whole lot of improvement, not even getting to CIF last year to the semifinals of CIF. It was great. And my season was great. I felt like I had a really good season, and it’ll be fun next year.”

matthew.szabo@latimes.com

Twitter: @mjszabo