SOUTHERN SECTION GIRLS’ TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS : DIVISION I : Peninsula Dominates Corona del Mar, Wins Title

“Coming to CIF, you pretty much compete for second. It’s pretty much a given (Palos Verdes) Peninsula’s going to win.”

Corona del Mar’s Megan Wachtler couldn’t have summed up any better her team’s 17-1 loss to Palos Verdes Peninsula on Tuesday at the Claremont Club. For the fourth consecutive year, Peninsula won the Southern Section Division I girls’ tennis championship in convincing fashion.

Corona del Mar junior Alissa Scott, who won only three games in three sets, said she’s getting a little tired of Peninsula’s act.

“It’s fun being humiliated,” Scott said, sarcastically. “I guess it’s supposed to be a good experience. They just nail every single shot. You feel about 10 times smaller than them when you walk on the court.”

And the difference in talent might about 10 times greater for Peninsula, which had its entire team together--many play in juniors tournaments all over the world--for the first time all season. That team consists of five nationally ranked players, and two world-ranked players in Amanda Augustus and Amanda Basica. Basica was at a tournament in New Zealand last year during the section team finals.

Peninsula (24-0), which has won all 96 of its dual matches, became so dominant when Miraleste, Rolling Hills and Peninsula High Schools merged four years ago.

“How can they combine three different schools?” Scott asked. “We should combine (Newport) Harbor and Corona. We’d have a gnarly team. I think we could do OK, especially in doubles.”

Basica, ranked 12th in the world in International Junior Tennis Federation girls’ 16 rankings, doesn’t apologize for her team’s dominance.

“It’s not unfair because we all work hard,” she said. “They do too. We just have a lot of talent in one place.”

But Peninsula Coach Tom Cox said that won’t always be the case.

“We’re losing a lot of girls,” Cox said. “The replenishing isn’t occurring. There just isn’t any nationally-ranked players coming up. We’ll stay competitive, but not with the same dominance.”

Third-seeded Corona del Mar (17-4-1) hoped to be a little more competitive, but its top singles player, Nina Vaughan, was in St. Louis for the girls’ 14 national indoor championships.

“It probably wouldn’t have made a difference if Nina was here,” said Wachtler, who took Vaughan’s place at No. 1 singles and lost, 6-2, 6-0, 6-2.

The Sea Kings’ only points came in the last round from the No. 1 doubles team of Jenny Glasgow and Christie O’Meara, who defeated Peninsula’s No. 3 team of Beth Hannemann and Andrea Avent, 6-3.