Boys’ Tennis: Sage falls in semis

In terms of senior starters, Wednesday’s CIF Southern Section Division 2 playoff semifinal match was a mismatch before the first ball was struck.

Santa Margarita boys’ tennis had five of them in Ryan Dugan, Ricky Kurtz, Max Boice, Tyler McDonald and Jordan Geis. Sage Hill had one senior starter, Gordon Strelow, and even he had come off the bench in the Lightning’s previous two playoff matches.

Once the action started, that experience seemed to make a difference for the top-seeded Eagles. No. 4 Sage Hill fell behind 4-2 after the first round for the second straight home match at The Tennis Club Newport Beach.

This time, the Lightning could not recover. Santa Margarita’s double dominance allowed the visitors to win, 14-4, and advance to the Division 2 championship match Friday at noon at The Claremont Club.

Santa Margarita (24-3) will play No. 3-seeded San Clemente, which edged No. 2 Arcadia, 9-9 (79-74 on games) in another semifinal match, for the title.

Sage Hill (15-6) will have to wait to see if its season continues. Coach A.G. Longoria said he believes his squad has a good chance to be one of the eight Southern Section teams selected for the CIF State Southern California Regional playoffs next week. Sage Hill will find out Sunday if it gets in.

Doubles did the Lightning in Wednesday. Santa Margarita’s teams of Kurtz and Boice, as well as McDonald and Connor Ambrose, both swept. The No. 3 team of Geis and Erik Radovic won twice before it was edged, 6-4, in the last round by Sage’s brother tandem of Kian and Ash Etedali.

“The reality is that I know that team really well,” said Longoria, who has coached many of Santa Margarita’s players in the past at Coto de Caza Golf & Racquet Club. “I knew their doubles was just going to be outstanding ... They’re a senior-laden team that knows how to play doubles, and they know how to step on the gas when they have the lead. They have five seniors, and we started one. We have three freshmen and five sophomores.”

Sage Hill was attempting to make the CIF title match for the second time in program history, and first since the program’s lone title in 2011. In the past two matches, a 10-8 win at Oak Park on Friday and Monday’s 12-6 victory over Walnut, Longoria had subbed Strelow and freshman Calvin Brown into the doubles lineup in the second round. The moves paid off each time.

Longoria elected to start Strelow and Brown on Wednesday. Strelow was teamed with the freshman, Ash Etedali, and Brown with another freshman, Will Sanderson.

It didn’t matter to Santa Margarita, which took a 4-2 first-round lead by winning three 6-1 doubles sets, combined with Dugan’s 6-4 victory over Sage Hill No. 1 singles player Kenan Torlic.

Dugan, who will play next year at UC Santa Cruz, swept at No. 1 singles for the Eagles. When Santa Margarita edged Sage Hill 9-9 (80-71 on games) in the teams’ nonleague meeting in early March, Dugan played at No. 1 doubles as Santa Margarita was without Kurtz with a foot injury.

“We knew he was a threat in doubles,” Sage senior Shayan Emtiaz said of Dugan. “We didn’t know he was going to be this much of a threat in singles, and it kind of took us by surprise. They really took advantage of that.”

Santa Margarita won five of six sets in the second round, too, capped by Nick St. John’s 7-6 (7-2) victory over Sage Hill’s Omead Moini. That gave Santa Margarita a 9-3 advantage in sets, and enough of a games lead to have the match virtually clinched.

Moini, Torlic and Adam Langevin each won once in singles before they were subbed out in the final round. But it was the strong play of the singles lineup that had gotten Sage Hill to this point.

All season, though, the Lightning failed to find consistent doubles teams.

“We’ve been changing things around for a while,” said Sage senior Amir Soleimany, who played at No. 3 doubles in the last round with Grant Janavs. “I don’t think we really found a few set teams that clicked very well. I think A.G. had a point in changing things around, because he saw that things weren’t really clicking too much. If only we had clicked, I think we could have gone much farther ... We didn’t have that at all.”

Longoria made substitutions on all lines during the third round of the match. Emtiaz came in at No. 1 singles, with James Wang at No. 2 singles and Arya Nanda at No. 3. The No. 1 doubles team became Ashwin Dhame and Noah Koumas.

Santa Margarita kept its starters in, needing to get ready for Friday’s finals.

The Claremont Club is a place that Sage Hill does think it can return to in the future, with so many players returning next year. The program appears to be on the rise again, after winning just two total matches in 2013 for the worst season in Longoria’s coaching career. Last year, the Lightning lost in the first round of CIF.

“This Sage team is going to be dangerous,” Emtiaz said. “We’re young. The future is bright.”

But it was also a good run for the soccer seniors, Strelow, Emtiaz and Soleimany. They helped Sage Hill get to the CIF semifinals in both boys’ soccer and tennis this season. The Division 6 semifinal appearance in soccer was the first in program history.

“It’s kind of tough making it to semifinals and then losing,” Strelow said. “Then again, it’s a good experience. Even getting there is a big accomplishment. It’s cool to even be here.”