San Marino tennis ready for CIF clash

When the San Marino High and Arcadia girls’ tennis teams face off in Friday morning’s CIF Southern Section Division II championship at The Claremont Club at 10, the similarities between the programs will pale in comparison to the differences.

While distance between school campuses is roughly four miles, the historical separation between the programs is much wider.

The top-seeded Titans (18-3), the Rio Hondo League champions, qualified to their 14th championship match, third in four years, and enter with an impressive 10-3 record in title matches.

On the flip side, the second-seeded Apaches (20-0), the Pacific League titlists, are making their second-ever championship appearance in the 41st and final year in the tenure of retiring coach Jerry Dohling, having lost their only previous title match, 12-6, to Laguna Beach in 1992.

Despite history slanted in San Marino’s favor, the Apaches appear to have a big advantage on the doubles side.

“They have a strong, fast and smart top two doubles teams,” Pasadena Poly first-year Coach Sheryl Bakalov said. “We played them early this season and they were impressive.”

Bakalov was referring to the Apaches’ top doubles team of seniors Annie Tung and Elizabeth Lieu and the No. 2 squad of Ashley Gao and Tiffany Hsieh.

Both teams combined to go 5-1 in leading the Apaches to a 12-6 nonleague victory over Poly on Sept. 5.

More recently, however, both teams proved menacing in sweeping their opponents as Arcadia eliminated Prep League champion Westridge, 12-6, in the Division II quarterfinals Monday afternoon.

“I don’t know how good San Marino doubles is, but Arcadia is very good and their top two teams are two of the best in the area,” Westridge Coach Jerry Rivera said. “That’s really going to be their strength.”

So far this postseason, both doubles teams are undefeated.

Interestingly, it was doubles play that guided San Marino on Wednesday as head coach Melwin Pereira shuffled his lineup and was wildly successful as his teams finished 8-1.

Pereira was unabashed in breaking up the No. 3 doubles’ duo of Andrea Klein and Aliki Kvitne, which has gone 5-4 through in three previous postseason contests.

Pereira moved his No. 2 singles player Vivian Le with Klein, and the pair finished 3-0 in San Marino’s 11-7 victory over Claremont in the semifinals.

“It wasn’t hard to move Vivian down to doubles because I thought she was going to get slaughtered in singles,” Pereira said. “So, I used her in doubles.”

With much talk focused on doubles, the day’s most fascinating matchup may be the first when Rio Hondo League singles champion Dorothy Tang takes on Pacific League singles champ Francis Dean in a matchup of two of the top players in the San Gabriel Valley League.

“I had a chance to see Dorothy last year and Francis this year and that should be a great one,” Rivera said. “Dorothy is more aggressive, more of an attacker, while Francis is all about defense.”

When asked for a pick, Rivera hesitated, but said in most circumstances he would “take the defensive player in a single-set format.”

Both girls met Oct. 27 in Costa Mesa in a championship match preview when Dean defeated Tang, 6-1, 6-4, in the second round of the United States Tennis Association girls’ 18-and-under singles tournament.

“Dorothy was a little bit down, but she’s going to get payback,” Pereira said. “I know how Francis Dean plays. I’ve seen her play and I know how my girl plays. My girl has game.”

As for a final prediction?

“It’s going to be tough, but hey, we’re there and it’s one match,” Pereira said. “It’s probably going to be worse than [Wednesday’s score]. It’s probably going to be 9-9 and come down to games. We’ll see what happens.”