Moore Tires Out Webster to Win Title

HUNTINGTON BEACH —  Servite’s Ryan Moore knocked off his best friend with surprising ease in the morning, then relaxed in an air-conditioned clubhouse while his next opponent, Sam Adam Webster of Santa Barbara, wailed away into a third set of his semifinal match.

Webster put up a strong fight for a set in the final, but the scorching sun and Moore’s steady baseline attack drained his energy. Moore wound up winning, 7-6 (9-7), 6-1, as he completed two days of tennis in the Southern Section individual singles championships at SeaCliff Country Club Saturday without dropping a set.

“I started cramping badly in the quadriceps at the end of the first set and in the second set,” Webster said. “I have to get in better condition.”

Webster might have been able to find more strength had he taken the first set, but he blew three set points while serving with a 5-4 lead and he let another slip away in the tiebreaker.

“I should have been able to serve out the set,” said Webster, who was seeded second. “All I wanted was one first serve, but I couldn’t get it. I have to hand it to him. He played well. He’s one hell of a player.”

Moore said his break of service in the ninth game was the key.

“I thought, ‘It’s great to fend his serve off,’ ” Moore said. “I felt the momentum shifting and I could tell he was getting tired. He played a lot more tennis than I did this weekend.”

Moore said he picked up confidence for his afternoon match by playing a near-perfect match against Foothill’s Joost Hol in the semifinals, 6-3, 6-3.

“They play similar games--they both like to bang away from the back,” Moore said. “I figured if I could beat one of them, I could beat the other.”

Webster, who signed with Boise State, also lost in the boys’ interscholastic finals of Ojai last month.

“That’s all right,” he said. “This is a good way to go out. I have no regrets.”

Moore, who was seeded fourth, is only a junior.

“This was huge,” he said. “It’s a great tournament to win.”

Moore’s 6-3, 6-3 victory over Hol took just over an hour. He never let his friend in the match.

“He returned my serve really well,” Hol said. “When we practice he always returns well, so I knew that would be a factor.”

Another small factor was Hol’s generosity. He played more than a few balls that appeared out.

“He must have hit at least 10 balls that were on the line or almost on the line,” Hol said. “They were in, but it was really aggravating.”

In the doubles final, Palm Desert’s Peter Gladkin and Brock Berry defeated Santa Margarita’s colorful team of Cody Shedd and Andrew Tsu, 6-4, 6-3. Shedd and Tsu painted their hair green and white.

“‘We planned it last year after we lost in the round of 16,” Tsu said. “We said if we got to the semifinals, we’d dye our hair to look like tennis balls. It’s for Coach [Doug] Williams.”

Berry and Gladkin noticed the Dennis Rodman hairdos when they were warming up.

“It’s something different,” Berry said.

Said Gladkin: “I just thought, ‘Wow.’ ”

Berry and Gladkin said they also were wowed by the thought of playing in a section final, even if they were the top-seeded team.

“We were a little nervous,” Gladkin said. “Once we got into a groove and played like we could, we had no problem.”

The size of Berry (6 feet 4) and Gladkin (6 feet 6) also was a factor. In the second set, they began spiking Tsu and Shedd’s high returns.

“We like to lob a lot,” Tsu said, “but they were a little too tall for that.”

Tsu and Shedd reached the final by avenging their Sea View League final loss to Woodbridge’s Reza Farokhpay and Tyler Call with a 6-4, 7-5 victory.