Tennis: San Marino Sweeps Rio Hondo League Finals

The Rio Hondo League boys tennis finals are long overdue for a name change. Based on recent events, something along the lines of “The San Marino Open” would be a more applicable title.

Other teams are welcome to attend, of course. They should just know going in that there’s a good chance an all-too-familiar light blue will dominate the final matches.

That was the case during Thursday’s league finals at Live Oak Park in Temple City as San Marino represented three of the four finals spots including an all Titans singles finals.

San Marino senior Jonny Wang survived a scare from sophomore teammate James Wade to claim his fourth consecutive league singles title with a 6-2, 3-6 (10-6) win. The Titans doubles team of Robert Carter and Nicolas Splichal rallied to beat Temple City’s Terrence Sun and Justin Lin 3-6, 6-0 (10-7) to win the doubles trophy.

“Jonny reaches for something special when he has to, and he has the talent really to be able to push himself physically,” San Marino coach John Kuramoto said. “Now mentally, he’s really developed a way to close matches and he’s developing as a player."

La Canada took both consolation matches, as Josh Kim topped Temple City’s Lestter Yeh 6-3, 7-5 in singles. Michael Choi and Tyler Jones beat South Pasadena’s Ben Charney and Sam Yang 7-6 (5), 6-4 for third place in doubles.

The Titans have now swept both the Rio Hondo League’s singles and doubles titles for a third straight year, and three of Wang’s four singles victories have come against another Titan.

While Wang rode into Thursday’s matches fresh off a finals appearance in the prestigious Ojai Valley Tennis Tournament, Wade pushed him to the brink.

After Wang breezed to a 6-2 victory in the first set – at one point winning five straight games to go up 5-1 – Wade started to work both corners of the court, forcing Wang to chase the ball back and forth across the court. Wade’s pressure forced Wang into a couple of uncharacteristic mishits, and Wade took the set 6-3.

“He’s always tough, always tough to beat,” Wade said. “I’ve played him a lot of times and he’s really tough all the time.” 

Wade said his strategy in that second set was to, “move him side-to-side and take my opportunities. If he hits a short ball or something and come in, and that worked in the second set.”

In the tiebreaker, though, Wang reminded the younger Wade why he’s the three-time league champ, making the necessary adjustments to pull out a 10-6 win to clinch another first place finish.

Though Wade came up short, his second set win represented a minor changing of the guard within the San Marino program. One illustration tennis career about to come to a close, while another is poised to take off. 

“We are so proud of James Wade, the way he played today,” Kuramoto said.” This is exactly what we wanted from James because we’ve had Jonny and James hitting in practice daily, and James’ game has developed. He knows how to play Jonny as you saw in the second set. And we just think that we have a very strong developing player in James Wade. Happy to have him as (our) No. 2.”

The Titans now turn their attention to the postseason where they’ll be competing in Division I for the first time. The Titans lost to Palm Desert in the semifinals of Division II last year. 

“We’re excited,” Kuramoto said. “We’ve got our boys playing well. Division I is going to be new for us. This is our first year in Division I postseason, but we feel confident. We have our boys in play. As long as we play our game we’re going to be competitive.”

Wang, Wade and the Carter-Splichal duo will also compete in the CIF-SS Individual Sectionals, beginning May 20. Wang reached the quarterfinals last year, and said he’s looking to make a return trip to the Seal Beach Tennis Center later this month.

“I’m hoping that I make it to Seal beach again,” he said. “Hoping I can go all the way.”