Taft figures out how to beat Granada Hills in tennis semifinal

After watching his Woodland Hills Taft boys’ tennis team lose to visiting Granada Hills a few weeks ago, Coach Tom Wright considered changing his lineup if the teams met again in the playoffs.

Sure enough, the West Valley League rivals squared off once more in the City Section Championship Division semifinals Wednesday.

And sure enough, Wright tried to make the right moves, by switching his two best singles players, Josh Tchan and Justin Gold, to doubles, though they were not paired with each other. While the tactic did not quite net the results he wanted, the third-seeded Toreadors still did enough to win, 16 1/2 -13, at Balboa Sports Center in Encino.

“When we played them in league, we barely won the first time [4-3] and lost decisively the second time playing the straight-up head-to-head format,” said Wright, whose team advanced to the finals for the first time in his eight seasons.

“But this was round robin, and I figured if I left Josh and Justin in singles, the most they could get us is eight points if they both swept, whereas if they both swept in doubles, that’s nine points.”

The move appeared to backfire when Tchan won only two of three sets with partner Michael Mamaliger and Gold did the same with Aaron Tietelbaum, for a combined total of six points. What Wright didn’t expect, however, was that the four freshmen he put in singles would out-play the Highlanders’ older, more-experienced players.

Jim Wellman set the tone in the first rotation by surprising Granada Hills’ No. 2 player Vinnie Amor, 7-5. David Engelberg then rallied from being down, 4-2, to beat another Highlanders senior Jeremy Choo, 6-4, and Taft’s No. 4 player Daniel Sassoon came back from a 4-1 deficit to win his last set, 7-5.

“Coach told us singles players that to pull this off we would each have to win two sets,” Engelberg said. “Anything more than that was a bonus.”

Wellman and Engelberg each won three out of four sets for Taft (14-1) and Ben Black paired with A.J. Minasian to upset Granada Hills’ No. 2 duo of Ernie Hidalgo and Oren Hillel, 6-1, in doubles.

Senior Eric Lee swept, 6-0, 6-1, 6-0, 6-4, for Granada Hills (10-2).

In the other semifinal, Ariel Oleynik swept, 6-2, 6-4, 6-1, 6-1, at No. 1 singles and top-seeded Palisades (22-3) won eight of nine doubles sets to move within one victory of its third consecutive City championship with a 21-8 1/2 victory over Eagle Rock.

Joseph Valentino won three of four sets at No. 1 singles for the fourth-seeded Eagles (14-2).

The City final will be held at noon Friday at Balboa Sports Center.