Sea Kings Fall to Peninsula in Final

Palos Verdes Peninsula showed off its depth Saturday, soundly defeating Corona del Mar, 7-2, in the championship match of the National High School Tennis All-American tournament at Palisades Tennis Club in Newport Beach.

Top-seeded Peninsula, the defending champion of the two-year-old tournament and the defending Southern Section Division I champion, won five of six singles sets--the teams played eight-game pro sets--from the third-seeded Sea Kings.

“I was hoping to get three singles,” Panther Coach Tom Cox said. “To win five was unbelievable.”

It wasn’t completely dismal for Corona del Mar, Orange County’s top-ranked team. Many of the sets were close and the two victories the Sea Kings did come away with were huge.

Brian Morton and Garrett Snyder stunned Peninsula’s Rylan Rizza and Jeff Kazarian, the U.S. Tennis Assn.’s top-ranked doubles team in 16s, with a quick 8-3 victory, and Cameron Ball upset Kazarian, 8-3, in singles.

Morton, a senior, and Snyder, a sophomore, dominated their match, taking a 5-0 lead with strong serves and net play. Rizza and Kazarian tried to muster a rally, winning two straight games to close to 7-3, but the Sea Kings put it away on Snyder’s service, including two aces.

In singles, it was Ball’s first victory over Kazarian, who is ranked 82nd nationally and 12th in Southern California in boys’ 18s. Ball is ranked 198th nationally and 15th in Southern California. Ball, who finished the tournament undefeated for the second consecutive year, was named to the all-tournament team.

“Cameron really gets up for this tournament,” Corona del Mar Coach Tim Mang said. “He was really impressive today.”

Garrett Snyder and Peter Kulmaticki both battled to tiebreakers in singles, but fell short. Snyder, a sophomore, rallied from a 5-3 deficit against Teige Sullivan to take a 7-6 lead. But Sullivan, the Southern Section Division I doubles champion, broke Snyder to tie the match, 7-7, and then finished him off, 7-5, in the tiebreaker.

“This could have been a lot closer,” Mang said. “We were right there. We won some close ones and we lost some close ones. We just didn’t have quite enough today. Peninsula is just too deep.”

In the semifinals, the Sea Kings rallied from a 2-1 deficit to upset second-seeded Atherton Menlo, 6-3.

Corona del Mar, which went 3-1 in the tournament and is 4-0 in nonleague matches this season, won five of six singles sets, with wins from Morton, Ball, Snyder, Randy Meyers and Kulmaticki.

Peninsula (4-0) advanced to the title match with a 6-3 victory over Fresno Clovis West.