University’s Doubles Teams Come to the Rescue

IRVINE —  University boys’ tennis Coach Josh Davis was sweating and pacing more than usual for a second-round playoff match. But afterward, Davis was smiling and telling his players there would be practice Monday afternoon.

“It’s survival and that’s about all,” Davis said after his team’s 11-10 victory Thursday over Foothill in the Southern Section Division I playoffs. “We played well enough to win. Our singles didn’t play well and that made it a lot tougher than it should have been.”

Jason Meyers won his three sets--University’s only singles victories--and Raja Kapadia and Jason Maddox were swept in their three sets. But University took six of nine doubles sets to make the difference. The most significant was Min Lee and Felix Ling’s 6-4 victory over Mike Penn and Nate Garrett.

While Kapadia was in the tiebreaker of his 7-6 loss to Dan Greenwood, Ling was holding serve to clinch the match.

“I can’t believe we couldn’t get one more doubles,” Foothill Coach Dennis Claus said. “The match came out just exactly as we wanted, except that we didn’t get one more doubles set.”

Foothill’s No. 3 team of Ryan Thompson and Jack Huang did its job--winning, 6-2, 6-1, 7-6--but Penn and Grissett and Tom Lin and Rob Claus lost two of three sets.

“Foothill came to play,” Davis said. “They’ve got a tough team. That’s the hardest second-round match I’ve ever had.”

But Davis is expecting a tougher match from third-seeded Dana Hills (21-0), University’s quarterfinal opponent Tuesday. Dana Hills edged University this season while Davis was experimenting with his lineup.

“Our whole team will have to play a lot better against Dana Hills, especially our singles,” Davis said.

Foothill finished 20-2.

“We had a great season,” Claus said. “It’s too bad we always seem to run into a team from (the Sea View League.)”