Singular Effort Fails Westlake; Harvard Cruises to Title Defense : Sweep of Doubles Sparks Dana Hills

The Westlake High tennis team finds playing doubles to be half as exciting as singles. But the doubles are often twice as important for a title-contending team.

Dana Hills swept all nine doubles matches to rout Westlake, 15-3, and win its second consecutive Southern Section 4-A Division championship Wednesday at Thousand Oaks High.

Darin Pleasant, ranked No. 32 in the 18-and-under division of the Southern California Tennis Assn., won the only three matches for Westlake, which finished the season 19-5.

“Their doubles teams overpowered us,” Pleasant said. “No one on our team seems to care about doubles. Their doubles teams are tournament tough. Our doubles teams come out and practice, but they don’t become familiar with each other’s game.”

Westlake was in doubles trouble right from the start.

The Warriors lost three doubles matches in the first round and fell behind, 5-1, in the first rotation of players in the round-robin format. Pleasant beat Ben Stevens, 6-3, for Westlake’s only victory.

Dana Hills clinched the championship, 10-2, with three more doubles wins and two singles victories with six matches left. Dana Point’s Ryan Gately, who missed all but three matches because of academic ineligibility, teamed with Kurt Bruggeman to beat Conrad Lai and Buddy Turl, 7-5, for the deciding point.

Dana Hills’ doubles teams won 36 matches without a loss in Dolphins’ four playoff matches.

“We didn’t produce at the right moment,” first-year Westlake Coach Jaime Barajas said. “We had lost some close doubles matches early and we stopped playing hard. We were right there. We just needed a little bit of luck.”

The top-seeded Dolphins have defeated Westlake in three consecutive matches, including two in the playoffs, over the past two years.

Dana Hills (21-3) beat Westlake, 10-8, in last year’s quarterfinals and, 11-7, in a nonleague match earlier this season. Neither team expected a rout in the final, however.

But Westlake’s Todd Robinson and Mike Studebaker, who had lost only one doubles set before Wednesday’s match, lost all three.

Andy Devore, ranked 52nd by the SCTA as a 16-and-under player, also lost three times.