Corona del Mar Comes Up Short

Palos Verdes Peninsula’s Tim Marsh knew what it felt like to lose the deciding set and cost his team a Southern Section Division I championship. He didn’t want to go there again.

So he didn’t. Marsh lost his first two sets and was trailing in his final set, but he rallied to win the set and give top-seeded Peninsula its first section boys’ tennis title with a thrilling 9-9 (84-73 in games) victory over second-seeded Corona del Mar Wednesday at the Balboa Bay Racquet Club in Newport Beach.

Marsh and Peninsula’s other two singles players, Goh Futagaki and Roy Choi, had not won a set all day. But Peninsula’s doubles teams gave Marsh a chance to pull out the match by winning eight sets.

Marsh trailed, 4-3, against Corona del Mar’s Christian Jensen, who had won his first two sets. But he held serve and broke Jensen’s serve to take a 5-4 lead with players and spectators surrounding the court.

“I didn’t want to serve at 4-5, with hundreds of people watching in the [section final],” Marsh said.

Two years ago, Marsh was the last player on the court against Woodbridge in the section final. He lost a tiebreaker to Chase Exon and Peninsula lost the match, 10-8.

“I was thinking about that a heck of a lot,” Marsh said. “If I didn’t pull it out, I don’t think I’d have been able to sleep the rest of my life.”

The place erupted when Jensen hit a backhand into the net, giving Marsh a 6-4 victory. Marsh was swarmed and tackled by his teammates. Jensen stood in the backcourt with a confused look.

“I didn’t know what the situation was,” Jensen said. “I didn’t win the big points. At four all, it just didn’t come up for me.”

Peninsula beat Corona del Mar this season in similar fashion. Peninsula was trailing, 7-5, after two rounds, then rallied to win on games. Marsh won that deciding set, 6-4, over Parker Collins.

Collins and Sameer Chopra each swept their singles sets Wednesday, but all they could do was watch the Jensen-Marsh match.

“Our singles were awesome,” Corona del Mar Coach Tim Mang said. “I thought we could get two doubles sets.”

But the Panthers’ three doubles teams wouldn’t give it up. Their top two teams of Maurice Yu and David Gleiberman and Teige and Seamus Sullivan swept their sets. Gleiberman and Yu won the section individual title Saturday over the Sullivans, who lost just one game Wednesday.

“I don’t think our doubles teams played bad, they just have great doubles,” Collins said.

After the doubles sets were completed, the Sullivans came over and led the cheers for Marsh.

“We’re a tight team, we’re brothers,” Teige Sullivan said. “We want to get everybody pumped up the way we are.”

Corona del Mar, which was trying to win its first title in 15 years, finished 21-2 with both losses coming to Peninsula (23-1).