Marina boys’ tennis eases past Hart in CIF opener
Marina High senior boys’ tennis player Peter Liang plans to attend UC Santa Cruz and major in biomolecular engineering.
That field of study will have Liang dealing with the manipulation of molecules.
In terms of his game, there doesn’t appear to be much that needs tweaking.
The two-time Wave League singles champion earned a “triple bagel” on Wednesday in the first round of the CIF Southern Section Division 2 playoffs, winning each of his sets against visiting Newhall Hart by the same 6-0 score.
It was a solid effort throughout for the Vikings, who finished off with a 14-4 home win to open their postseason run.
Wave League champion Marina (16-5) will play at Los Angeles Windward in the second round Friday. Windward won at South Torrance 9-9 (83-80 on games) in another first-round match Wednesday.
Liang, who said he hopes to walk on to the Banana Slugs’ college tennis team, first wants to lead the Vikings on another deep postseason run. Marina advanced to the Division 3 semifinals last year before losing on games to JSerra, denying the team its first section finals appearance in program history.
Coach Chuck Kingman knows a similar run in a higher division will be tougher for Marina, which finished the season ranked No. 5 in Division 2. The Vikings played the top two seeds, Beckman and Los Alamitos, in consecutive nonleague matches on March 21 and 22, losing 11-7 each time.
“We had some good wins against individual players, but we ended up losing both of those,” Kingman said. “They were good matches.”
Liang is good and clutch at the top of the lineup for Marina. He said he saved five match points in the semifinals of the Wave League singles tournament to beat Laguna Beach’s Peter Durand, before topping the Breakers’ Ian MacLaughlin in the title match.
Marina also boasted the league doubles champions, sophomore Bradley Gallo and freshman Trevor Nguyen. They have typically both spent time at No. 3 singles this season, Kingman said, but on Wednesday they were again teamed in doubles against Hart (11-9).
Gallo and Nguyen won twice before they were subbed out. They were the only Vikings doubles team to earn a win against Hart’s top tandem of Thomas Dinculescu and Jack Burns, taking a 6-3 victory.
“That team was definitely solid,” Gallo said. “They strategized well and they had some good shots. We started off a little behind, and eventually caught up.”
Senior Vincent Hoang won twice in singles for Marina before being subbed out, and fellow senior Savas Zamvakellis — making just his second appearance in singles all season — won a pair of tiebreaker sets. Darren Le also came in to win a singles set in the third round.
Edwin Wiversoll and Dylan Nguyen earned a pair of wins at No. 3 doubles for Marina. The teams of Jonathan Gertz and Nathan Nguyen, as well as substitutes Doan Le and Dean Chan, won one set each.
If Marina wins Friday, it could see a Division 2 quarterfinal date with No. 4-seeded Goleta Dos Pueblos on Monday. The location of that potential match would be decided via coin flip.
“We’ll take as many home matches as we can get,” Kingman said. “If we’re fortunate enough to make it that far, I’m hoping that would be a home match.”
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