Newport Harbor’s Abrams Rolls to Singles Title

Newport Harbor senior Geoff Abrams will attend Stanford on a tennis scholarship next fall.

Too bad for the Cardinal. Stanford could use him now.

Abrams routed Los Angeles Marshall High’s Noah Newman, 6-2, 6-0, Saturday to capture the boys’ interscholastic singles championship at the 96th Ojai Valley tournament at Libbey Park.

Top-seeded Abrams made it look easy, winning the match in 50 minutes and holding third-seeded Newman to 18 points.

“I expected a tougher match,” Abrams said. “Noah might have been a little nervous.”

Then again, Abrams might have grown out of his league. The graceful, 6-foot-5 serve-and-volleyer had Newman jumping out of his sneakers to catch his 120-mph serves and many of his angular winning shots.

“I’m just not used to a serve like that,” Newman said. “I haven’t seen power like that all year. I just crumbled.”

While Abrams was enjoying his easiest match in the tournament, the Stanford men’s team, battling for the Pacific 10 Conference championship, was eliminated in singles.

Abrams came to Ojai for two reasons: to win the title and to meet some of his future Cardinal teammates. They were watching.

“We’re going to have a good team next year if everybody stays healthy,” Abrams said.

Chase Exon of Irvine wasn’t so fortunate in the boys’ 16 singles final, where he lost his forehand and his cool and fell to Erin Carroll of Ventura, 7-5, 6-4.

“My head’s a little out of control,” said Exon, who lost 14 of 15 points and three consecutive games during one stretch in the second set. “I’m a streaky player.”

One day after upsetting second-seeded Adam Webster, Dana Hills’ Brandon Fallon narrowly missed his chance to play Abrams in what would have been an All-Orange County final in the interscholastics.

Newman outlasted Fallon, a junior, 7-6 (7-4), 7-5.

“He’s a little more experienced than me,” Fallon said. “I played better yesterday. I’ll be back next year, and the year after that and the year after that, because I plan to play in college.”

Orange County players did capture three other championships. Faye DeVera of Villa Park and Kristina Kraszewski of Torrance defeated Kerry Giardino of Palos Verdes and Shera Wiegler of Calabasas, 6-1, 6-3, in girls’ 18 doubles.

Tim Lloyd and Carl McCafferty of Yorba Linda defeated Mark Gonzalez and Justin Kiley of Pomona, 6-1, 6-2, in boys’ 16 doubles. Nadia Vaughan of Corona del Mar defeated Jennifer Baker of La Quinta, 6-3, 6-2, in the girls’ 14 singles final.

Former Mater Dei standout Adam Peterson of USC advanced to today’s 11 a.m. Pac-10 men’s singles championship match against Trojan teammate Cecil Mamiit. Peterson beat Eric Tiano of UCLA, 6-3, 6-2, in the semifinals.

Sydney Weinberg and Missy Hosoi of Saddleback advanced to today’s finals of the community college division by defeating Grossmont’s Robyn Debons and Sarah Looney, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, in the quarterfinals and Sylvia Dettmer and Katie Gross of Desert, 6-4, 7-6, in the semifinals.

Weinberg and Hosoi will meet top-seeded Debbie Hayashi and Nancy Maebara of Grossmont in the finals at 2 p.m.

Ojai notes

In the Pacific 10 women’s singles, USC’s Karolina Bakalarova and Stanford’s Julie Scott advanced to the 9:30 a.m. final. Bakalarova defeated Katy Propstra of Arizona State, 6-4, 6-0, and Scott eliminated Sandra DeSilva of Stanford, 4-6, 6-1, 7-5.