Thousand Oaks powers its way into tennis final

FINAL FURY—Thousand Oaks High's Kyle McMorrow, left, and Ben Moon compete against Mater Dei. The Lancers had to sweat, but they still nabbed a huge victory.

Bolstered by nine wins from its top three singles players, the Thousand Oaks High boys' tennis team defeated visiting Mater Dei 117 in the CIFSouthern Section Division I semifinals Tuesday afternoon.

Thousand Oaks received a boost from doubles tandem of senior Alex Johnson and junior Tyler Bridges.

Johnson and Bridges won two of three matches to help the Lancers (20-1 overall) advance to the finals against University High of Irvine (22-0). The title match will be held at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, June 3 at Claremont.

"I'm thrilled we've been able to go this far," Thousand Oaks head coach Dave Assorson said. "I'm pleased we get to go to the finals because it's a long, long road."

Lancer seniors Denis Lin and Kyle McMorrow, and sophomore Marcos Giron won all nine of their sets.

Lin and McMorrow had relatively little trouble breezing through their singles matches.

Photos by JANN HENDRY Acorn Newspapers Lin defeated C.J. Chomeau 6-0 and Nick Picarelli 6-1 before knocking out Chris Freeman— Mater Dei's strongest player, according to Lin—6-3 in the final match of the afternoon.

McMorrow defeated Freeman (6-3), Picarelli (6-0) and Chomeau (6-0). Giron sealed the team victory with a hard-fought 6-3 win against Picarelli.

"It feels real good," Giron said, "We don't get these chances every year."

Giron said the key to defeating University will be earning crucial doubles victories, namely from Johnson and Bridges.

"I feel like our doubles teams are coming around," Giron said. "They have to stay solid under pressure."

Lin said every Lancer must play well to win a team championship.

"The matches will be a lot closer," Lin said. "It will come down to a few points here and there. We're not going to have any easy matches."

Johnson and Bridges lost their first-round set to Omeed Ghassemi and Trevor Zaret 7-6 (5), but bounced back to defeat Brian Huang and Justin Agbayani 6-4, and Charlie Alvarado and Evan McNerney, 6-3.

"We want to take pressure off the singles players," Johnson said. "Winning two made everyone looser."

Johnson's and Bridges' distinct personalities mesh well.

Johnson is a soft-spoken, lanky player who hits the ball with a deft touch. The passionate Bridges, who is in his first year playing with the team, rankles foes with his chatter and often mirrors the behavior of a younger John McEnroe.

"There's no changing him, and there's no changing me," Johnson said. "If we were both real quiet, we wouldn't get pumped up. If we were both fiery, we would maybe get too crazy. It's nice to have a mix of personalities."

The match was tied 3-3 early, with the Monarchs winning two doubles tiebreakers; Lancers Brendon Josephson and Matt Skwaruzynski lost 7-6 (4). From there, however, the Lancers pulled away.

Thousand Oaks, which also had contributions from Ben Moon, Michael Kunisaki, Greg Wise and Bobby Kane, has a chance to exact the ultimate revenge against University, which defeated the Lancers on March 21.

"I think we have a good chance of beating (University)," Assorson said. "They know what we've got, and we know what they've got."