Corona Invitational Has No Boundaries

The third Corona del Mar High National Invitational Tournament will include boys’ tennis teams from across the country--and one from outside of it--in competition Friday and Saturday at sites in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa.

Among the 16-team field are top-seeded Irvine University, the defending Southern Section Division II champion; second-seeded St. Joseph’s College of Brisbane, Australia; third-seeded Corona del Mar, the defending Division V champion, and fourth-seeded Atherton Menlo, the Northern California representative.

The only other participant from the Times’ top 10 rankings is fifth-ranked North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake, and the only other Southern Section team is San Marino, a replacement for Christ Church High of Greensville, S.C.

“Obviously I want out-of-state teams to be there because it’s a national tournament,” said Corona del Mar Coach Tim Mang, the tournament’s director. “I’d like to have the four best teams in Southern California, but we also want teams from out of the area, and there’s only 16 teams.”

The other participating teams from California are Fresno Clovis West, Auburn Placer, Carmichael Jesuit, Millbrae Mills, Sacramento Rio Americano, Cupertino Monta Vista and Moraga Campolindo. From out of state are Horace Mann of Riverdale, N.Y.; Brophy College Prep of Phoenix, and Cheshire Academy of Cheshire, Conn.

Play starts at 10:30 a.m. Friday with eight-game, pro-set matches at Corona del Mar High, Palisades Tennis Club, Newport Beach Tennis Club, Balboa Bay Racquet Club and Park Newport Apartments in Newport Beach and the Costa Mesa Tennis Center.

Semifinals will be at 1 p.m. Saturday at Palisades, with finals at 5 p.m.

Regular-season roll: When it comes to powerhouse programs, Rosemead Bosco Tech’s doesn’t spring to mind the way those do at such tennis-rich schools as Corona del Mar, Palos Verdes Peninsula, Beverly Hills and Harvard-Westlake.

That’s because the school’s success in the sport is relatively new.

The Tigers (11-0, 1-0 in Santa Fe League play) are 51-0 in regular-season matches since juniors Howard Nguyen, Marco Pineda and James Olivares arrived in 1999-2000.

“We’re just getting things rolling,” Coach John Sepulveda said. “We happened to get some kids who were not bad players.”

This season, Nguyen, the team’s top player, has played only one match while focusing on schoolwork. He is 3-0.

Pineda is 29-1 and Olivares is 32-1, with each losing only to Los Angeles Murphy’s Ken Brown, the league’s singles champion the last two seasons, in Bosco Tech’s 15-3 victory in a league opener Thursday.

The left-handed Nguyen was the league runner-up to Brown the last two years. Pineda, a right-hander, and Olivares, another lefty, have teamed to win the league’s doubles title two years in a row.

Last year, Bosco Tech advanced to the Southern Section Division IV quarterfinals, losing to eventual runner-up Goleta Dos Pueblos. The Tigers were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs in the trio’s freshman season.

Bosco Tech, winner of the last two Santa Fe league titles, is competing in Division III this season.