San Marino tennis onward to CIF final

SAN MARINO — After a one-year hiatus, the San Marino High girls’ tennis team has advanced to another CIF Southern Section title match.

The Pasadena-area’s most dominant program qualified to its 14th championship match and third in four years after the top-seeded Titans defeated visiting fourth-seeded Claremont, 11-7, in Wednesday afternoon’s Division II semifinals.

With the victory, Rio Hondo League champion San Marino (18-3) will face No. 2-seeded Arcadia in a regional showdown at 10 a.m. Friday at the Claremont Club.

The Pacific League champion Apaches (20-0) punched their ticket with a 13-5 win over Laguna Beach and will be playing for retiring 41-year veteran Coach Jerry Dohling.

“I’m so glad and I can’t believe this happened,” said Titans Coach Melwin Pereira, who is in his first full season as the girls’ coach after taking over for John Christopher last year. “I’m so proud of my girls.”

The Titans led the Sierra League champion Wolfpack (12-2-1) after one round, 4-2, and 7-5 past two rounds.

Yet, the contest wasn’t decided until the Titans’ No. 3 team of Andrea Klein and Vivian Le defeated Claremont’s top team of Sharon Stanislaus and Sophie El-Kara, 6-3.

The victory gave San Marino the magical 10th point needed to clinch a victory outright, which was followed by a 6-3 match-ending triumph from the Titans’ No. 1 squad of Larissa Phillips and Madeleine Gandawidjaja.

“It’s so amazing to get this win. We played back-and-forth the whole day,” Klein said. “We had some wild sets and it’s great to win.”

Pereira swapped Le in place of Klein’s usual partner, Aliki Kvitne, and the duo took part in arguably the day’s most riveting action, when they defeated Claremont’s No. 2 team of Nikki Rivao and Hailey Kayatta, 7-6 (7-4), in a set that lasted 45 minutes and ended when Le smashed a backhand volley that hit the net and just trickled over for the winner.

Klein and Le initially trailed, 4-1, before rallying for the win.

“I just told them to do me a favor and just get one ball back, just get one,” Pereira said, “meaning if they hit the ball over, just get one more back. One more back turned in 30-35 rallies and they came back.”

The effort capped a strong day for San Marino’s doubles teams, as Phillips and Gandawidjaja won their sets 6-4, 6-3, 6-0, the No. 2 team of Lauren Chang and Monique Gandawidjaja won two sets, 6-3 and 6-2, and Klein and Le clinched their two wins.

With Le, usually San Marino’s No. 2 singles player on the doubles side, the Titans only picked up three points on the singles side, with singles ace Dorothy Tang winning her three sets 6-2, 6-2, 6-3.

“It was so nerve-racking watching some of the other sets. I watched Andrea and Vivian’s [second set] and I had tears in my eyes after it was over,” Tang said. “This was just so awesome.”

In winning Wednesday, Pereira became the third Titans coach to lead the girls’ program to a championship match, joining Maureen Bryant, who was 8-3 in championship matches, and Paula Bush, who was 2-0 and led San Marino to its last crown in 2010.

In reaching the finals, San Marino topped Ayala, 14-4, in the first round, while also besting Yorba Linda (17-1) and El Dorado (15-3) in the next two rounds before facing Claremont.