Poway, La Jolla Fulfill Destinies

With the tennis team’s 13-5 victory over Mt. Carmel in the San Diego Section 3-A boys’ final Thursday at Morley Field, Poway claimed its eighth section title of the school year.

With graduation a couple of weeks away, another trophy in Poway’s display case might easily go unnoticed. But it’s one of a kind.

This was top-seeded Poway’s first section title in boys’ tennis, ending 25 years of frustration.

La Jolla High, on the other hand, should have its own tennis shrine by now. Its top-seeded boys earned their 23rd section title in 29 years and fourth in a row Thursday, beating St. Augustine, 11-7, in the 2-A final.

If La Jolla (25-0) and Poway (19-2) had one thing in common, it was that each team felt it had to win. At La Jolla, if you aren’t the section champion, you’re a misfit. And Poway suffered a heartbreak in the 1989 section semifinals when Chad Basinger and Kevin Berry blew a big lead and lost what would have been the deciding doubles match.

The opponent was Mt. Carmel, which went on to beat Torrey Pines in the final, 8.25-7.25.

“My partner and I had won, 6-1, in the first set and were ahead, 4-1, in the second,” Basinger said of the pivotal doubles match last year. “At one point, (Berry) was serving for the match. It got down to a crucial call, and it didn’t go our way. It was frustrating.”

Before Poway’s rematch with second-seeded Mt. Carmel (16-7), Basinger showed his teammates a press clipping about that defeat. It proved to be all the motivation Poway needed. Basinger, now playing at No. 2 singles, led a 9-0 singles sweep as Poway won easily.

La Jolla had a problem on its hands with third-seeded St. Augustine (15-5) when it led by just 7-6 near the midway point and found it wasn’t going to handle the Saints’ Ignacio Martinez. Martinez, the defending section singles champion, won his matches against David Smith (6-3), Tim Kreysing (6-3) and Jimmy Brown (6-4).

But La Jolla took seven of nine doubles matches without its regular No. 1 team. And when substitutes James Conda and Jon Elsberry completed a three-set sweep at No. 1 doubles with a 6-1 victory over Kurt Ambrosius and Richard McClellan, La Jolla needed one point to clinch and had three singles matches in which to do it.

Martinez took care of Brown, but Kreysing beat Tonatiuh Cuevas, 6-2, and Smith came back from a 3-1 deficit to beat German Aragon, 6-3.

La Jolla Coach Ryk Bjork opted to put No. 1 doubles players Kreysing and Brown at No. 2 and 3 singles, where he had originally slotted Elsberry and Conda, after Conda hurt his back earlier in the week. Kreysing and Brown lost four of six singles matches, but La Jolla was still too strong.

“We got pumped up, because we were playing for more than this one (championship),” said Smith, La Jolla’s No. 1 singles player. “We’re playing for the dynasty.”

Poway’s first section title came one year after the retirement of Terry Campbell, who coached for 25 years with more than 300 victories and teams winning more than 75% of their matches. The closest a Campbell team came to a section title was in 1975, when Poway reached the final but lost 21.5-6.5 to La Jolla. Current Poway coach John Graber played doubles on that team.

“He built the program,” Graber said of Campbell. “I came in at the right time, and I reaped the benefits.”

Basinger, Rick Spooner and Jeff Alvarez combined to shut out Mt. Carmel’s Troy Johnson, George Labb and Brian Pillsbury in singles. Poway led, 9-3, and was a point from clinching when its three singles players finished their last matches within five minutes of each other to finish it. Spooner beat Labb, 6-1, Basinger beat Pillsbury, 6-0, and Alvarez defeated Johnson, 6-1.