One team arrived at Balboa Sports Center in Encino hoping it would win. The other arrived knowing it would. That confidence showed on the courts, where Palisades needed less than two hours to clinch victory in the City Section Division I tennis final Tuesday against Granada Hills.
The Dolphins’ depth proved too much for the opponent in a convincing 22.5-7 triumph that netted their 34th City title and capped one of the most impressive postseason runs in section history.
The seven points surrendered to the second-seeded Highlanders were the only points Palisades allowed in three playoff matches and if not for Jake and RJ Sands defaulting several sets the Dolphins likely would have broken the record set by Palisades’ 2010 squad, which lost only 5.5 points on its way to the title.
“The biggest factor this year was all the tough teams we played to get to this point,” said Pali High Coach Bud Kling, who celebrated his 40th City crown and 24th with the boys. “Granada Hills is a good team, but we’ve just been playing highly-talented teams all season, so we’re used to that level.”
It marked the 1,087th career win for Kling, who took over as head coach at Palisades in 1979 and has also led the Dolphins’ girls program to 16 City titles.
“The major goal every year is to win City and we did that,” Kling added. “This, along with finishing second at the All-American Invitational will hopefully give us a high seed in the Southern California Regionals.”
Despite the 95-degree tempature, Palisades began even hotter, racing to a 14-0 lead that left the Dolphins one point away from victory in the round-robin format.
Senior captain and reigning City Individual singles champion Ben Goldberg had an ankle wrapped and was suffering from tendinitis in his knee, so Kling opted to pair him with Diego Huttepain at No. 1 doubles and they easily swept their three sets, 6-2, 6-0, 6-0.
“I knew I’d be playing doubles but I didn’t find out who my partner would be until right before [player] introductions.” Goldberg said. “We’d never played together other than in practice and we had to face Granada’s No. 1 team, which was really their No. 3 and No. 4 singles players, right off the bat. It was great to get that first one and we went from there. No disrespect to them, but we knew we were going to win.”
Goldberg is one of several Dolphins entered in the Ojai Tournament this weekend, where he’ll play in the CIF singles division.
“Playing doubles here was nice because I only had to cover half the court,” said Goldberg, a UCLA commit. “I’ve never had this type of injury and over the pain level was a “10,” but I stayed off my feet for three days and that really helped.”
Goldberg and Huttepain earned one and a half points by beating the Highlanders’ No. 3 duo of Sebastian Koh and Shaan Londhe, giving Palisades 15.5 points — one-half more than the total needed to secure the championship.
“I was serving at 5-0, 30-0 when Diego said we might be the clinching point so I was like “Let’s hurry!” said Goldberg, who served an ace to get to set point, then watched a shot sail over the baseline.
One minute later, Kevin Liu and Jack Harrington won their second set at No. 3 doubles and they went on to sweep, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2. At the No. 2 spot, Jared Fong and Alex Liu won 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 — giving the top-seeded Dolphins (26-1) all 13.5 doubles points.
Sophomore Jake Sands set the tone in singles, defeating Granada Hills’ top player Ryan Nuno 6-1.
At the No. 2 spot, Lucas Bellamy avenged a loss to Daniel Lin in last year’s final with a 7-6(5) triumph.
“I thought if I played tight in the breaker it might give him confidence and I wouldn’t play my shots as well,” Bellamy said. “I didn’t feel pressure because I knew we have such a strong lineup. I didn’t want to lose to him again so I had to give all I got.”
Bellamy went on to beat Brandon Perera 6-1 and Samuel Blumkin 6-0 before ousting Nuno 7-5 in a match to determine seeding for the Individual singles tournament.
“This means the most to me because I was injured my freshman year and didn’t play as much and last year I lost to Lin,” Bellamy added.
Trailing 3-4 in his second set against Lin, Jake Sands got injured and was forced to retire. He could not play his last two sets. Older brother RJ won his first two sets, 6-1, 6-0, but hurt his shoulder in a tiebreaker against Nuno and, with the outcome already decided, defaulted against Lin.
“Starting next year, we’ll have the substitution rule so if a player gets injured you can sub him out,” Kling said. “It’ll also give more kids an opportunity to play once a team has clinched.”
Freshman Henry Lovett won two of his four sets at No. 4 singles to provide the final margin.
City title No. 4 was anticlimactic for Goldberg, but he hardly seemed to mind.
“This doesn’t compare to the one two years ago when we won by half a point,” he said. “Still, it’s great to be going out on top.”
Palisades breezed through the first two rounds of the playoffs, shutting out Downtown Magnets 29.5-0 in the quarterfinals last Wednesday and El Camino Real by the same score in the semifinals last Friday at the Palisades Tennis Center.
In 50 combined sets against those schools, the Dolphins dropped a total of 17 games.
“We weren’t thinking about the scores as much, we just went out and played,” Fong said.
The season is far from over for the Dolphins, who still have Ojai, the City Individuals and the Southern California Regionals, where they hope to get another crack at Torrey Pines, which dealt Palisades its only loss in the finals of the All-American Invitational in Newport Beach.
“The Torrey Pines match was disappointing and so was losing to Arcadia in the first round of regionals last year,” Goldberg said. “We definitely thought we should’ve gone further but now we have another chance. We won City, now we want to finish the season on a winning note.”
— Steve Galluzzo
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