San Diego Section Team Tennis : Baumer Wins Key Match to Lead Bishop’s to Title

Whenever Mike Baumer of the Bishop’s School returned the ball into the net or slapped a backhand long Thursday in the decisive match of the San Diego Section 2-A tennis championship, his opponent’s teammates would loudly point out his mishap.

If St. Augustine’s boisterous supporters only knew the effect their jeering had on Baumer, they probably would have lowered their roar after the first set.

“When I made a mistake, the other team’s spectators would yell and make a lot of noise,” Baumer said. “I would use that as encouragement and come back with better concentration.”

Baumer, Bishop’s’ No. 3 singles player, defeated St. Augustine’s Pablo Zaragosa, 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, to lead the Knights to a 4-3 team championship at Morely Field.

The Baumer-Zaragosa match was the final event of the tournament, and the crowd focused its attention on the two players playing the deciding match.

“I heard somebody say it was three-all and it started to worry me,” Baumer said. “I was nervous, but I didn’t want to show it so I wouldn’t give (Zaragosa) an advantage.”

In the second set, Baumer, down 4-1, won five straight points on five powerful returns to shift the momentum of the match.

“(Baumer) does not know what pressure is,” Bishop’s Coach Bill Scott said. “I wouldn’t have wanted anybody else in that position.”

Baumer said he has seen his teammates in the limelight of a decisive match in the past but that Thursday was his first experience. He added that the pressure was eased by his teammates’ cheers.

“I was thinking during the match, ‘This is the most pressure I’ve ever been through,’ ” he said. “It tends to make you concentrate more. Sometimes having the pressure on you can help you and sometimes it doesn’t. . . . It’s hard to say, because if I lost it would have been a different point of reasoning.”

Scott, who guided the Knights to a 16-3 record this season, said he believed that the score of Thursday’s championship would be 4-3; he just wasn’t sure which team would win. Second-seeded Bishop’s has a squad dominated by seniors, with only one sophomore. St. Augustine, the tournament’s fourth seed, has only one senior, No. 1 singles player Steven Joyner, who defeated Reid Middleton of Bishop, 6-1, 6-2.

St. Augustine, which defeated top seed La Jolla in the semifinals Wednesday, finished 18-5. In the 3-A semifinals:

Vista 5, Poway 2--Although it lost in Nos. 1 and 3 singles, the Panthers swept the rest of their matches against Poway to move into the finals.

Chris Toomey beat Sammy Stinnet in No. 1 singles, 6-4, 6-4, and Jeff Faust got past Chad Shempp, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, to give the Titans their only victories. Besides that, it was all Vista as Chris Sapplington and Mark Oliver won their singles matches in straight sets.

The Panthers’ No. 1 team of Paul Richards and Thad Langford set the tone for the doubles competition, winning, 6-0, 6-0, over Poway’s Gordon Shockley and David Welborn.

Mount Carmel 4, Torrey Pines 3--In the No. 1 singles match, Mount Carmel’s Tom Phanco defeated Jeff Babickan, 6-1, 6-1, to lead the Sundevils past defending champion Torrey Pines. In the No. 3 doubles, Bob Sammuli and John Hoffpauir beat Mike Kestler and Eric Altshuler, 6-2, 1-6, 6-2. Mount Carmel (17-6) plays top-seeded Vista at 2:30 p.m. today at Morley Field.