Division Crucial to Team’s Success : Tennis: Sunny Hills’ fortunes improved when it no longer had to face perennial Division I champion Santa Barbara.

Sometimes it’s all about who has the best team. And sometimes it’s about being placed in the right division at the right time.

Over his 25 years as the Sunny Hills boys’ tennis coach, Steve White has been in the right place and the wrong place. Now, on the verge of winning his fourth Division II title in five years, White seems to have found the right place--especially since Division I is dominated by Santa Barbara, winner of seven consecutive Southern Section titles and nine of the last 10.

Though White’s teams have been powerful, Santa Barbara has produced some of the best tennis players in the state over the past decade.

“They’ve had some great teams,” White said. “I’d say about the only year we could have beaten them was maybe last year.”

But because the Freeway League is in Division II, Sunny Hills doesn’t have to find out whether it can match talent with Santa Barbara. However, there was a time when Sunny Hills had the opportunity, or misfortune, of playing against the highest level of competition.

In the mid-1970s, White said he had one of the best teams in the nation. But he never won a section title because Corona del Mar probably had the nation’s best team. The Sea Kings won six consecutive section titles from 1975 to 1980.

At that time, Sunny Hills was in the top playoff group. Back then, it was called Division 4-A. Sunny Hills was led by Paul Bernstein, who won the section individual title in 1977 and went on to star at Arizona State. The Lancers, however, lost to Corona del Mar in the ’76 and ’77 section finals.

“We had some great teams in the ‘70s, but we always had to play a better team in Corona del Mar,” White said.

If Sunny Hills continues to rule its section, there is a chance it could be moved up to Division I when the Southern Section regroups divisions for the 1998-99 school year. White said that would be unfair to the other teams in the Freeway League.

“Our league should probably be a Division III league in tennis,” White said. “If you put [the Freeway League] in Division I, these other guys wouldn’t have a chance.”

Sunny Hills, easily the class of the league, consistently drubs its Freeway opponents 18-0 or 17-1. “There hasn’t been another team in our league to get out of the [playoffs’] first round in years,” White said.

This year, Sonora and Troy, the league’s second- and third-place teams, won their wild-card matches but were beaten easily in the first round by Foothill and Glendale.

A possible solution would be to place Sunny Hills in a super conference for tennis. Bill Clark, the section administrator for boys’ tennis, said that was done in 1987 and 1988 with the Sea View, Channel, Ocean and Bay leagues.

White said he wouldn’t oppose such an idea again.

“A super tournament would be fun,” he said. “We looked into it when we had all our great teams in the ‘70s. That had a lot of validity.”

Clark said he doubts a super conference would work.

“We could put the top 16 teams in a bracket,” he said. “But then the 14, 15 and 16 teams are going to say, ‘We want to be in Division II. We want a chance to win a division title.’ This system we have might have some problems, but it seems to be the system agreed upon by all our constituents.”

White acknowledged he might have a hard time competing in that kind of conference after this season.

Kevin Kim, Sunny Hills’ best player last year, left school to attend a tennis academy. Junior Joseph Gilbert, White’s best player this season, is thinking of skipping his senior year for independent study.

“If we win this year, that would be great,” White said, “but our run of being dominant is over.”