NEWPORT BEACH – It was a collective regroup from a struggling doubles lineup, and the turnaround came under the most dire of circumstances.
With the match knotted up as it headed into the third round of play, No. 2 Corona del Mar collected a pair of come-from-behind wins from two of its doubles tandems and used those crucial points to edge No. 4 Beckman, 10-8, in a Pacific Coast League showdown Thursday afternoon at Corona del Mar High.
“I knew this was going to be a tight one – 8-10, 9-9 or 10-8 – and I kind of told my guys after the first round it was going to our lineup,” Sea Kings coach Jamie Gresh said. “Bjorn (Hoffmann) and Pedro (Fernandez del Valle) did their jobs sweeping, and our doubles struggled a bit. … But I spoke to our guys at six-all and said, ‘It’s not about playing great tennis. It’s about finding a way to win.’ ”
Hoffmann and Fernandez Del Valle capped stellar 3-0 days with quick wins in the third round to give the Sea Kings (9-2, 3-0) their seventh and eighth points of the match.
A singles win by Axel Stern put Beckman at seven points, and the Patriots (7-4, 1-2) were ahead 4-1 on one doubles court, 4-0 on another and even on the third.
The Sea Kings team of Oliver Kim and Grant Brown responded by winning six straight game to stage a dramatic 6-4 win on their court, while the Jacob Cooper–Kyle Pham duo battled back from the three-game deficit to win a 7-6 tiebreaker, which gave CdM the decisive 10th point of the match.
“I was kind of facing the reality we might come up short, and it might be an 8-10 match,” Gresh said. “We saved our best doubles for the third round which is when it was necessary, because it wasn’t looking too good after two rounds.”
The Cooper and Pham tandem went 3-0, matching sweeps from Hoffmann on Fernandez del Valle on the singles side.
The win keeps CdM even with No. 1 University atop the Pacific Coast League standings. Those two teams square off on April 13 at University High.
Contact the writer: kconnolly@ocregister.com
