Playing in the third spot from the Bay League, Mira Costa’s boys tennis team hit the road for the first round of the CIF Southern Section-Ford Division 1 Tennis Championships but the bus ride home was much longer for the Mustangs (12-8)who suffered an 11-7 loss to Santa Margarita (17-2) on Wednesday.
Redondo earned an at-large berth and defeated host San Marcos 9-9 (77-64 in games) in a wild-card match on Tuesday. Derek Levchenko and Christian Grantz won two-of-three singles sets apiece and the doubles teams of Kyle Rosenberg-Ryan Lee and Sho Nioka-Sean Mitchell each won two sets in the win.
Unfortunately for the Sea Hawks, their first-round contest was at top-seeded University (17-0) which maintained its unblemished record with a 17-2 win over Redondo (13-9).
Bay champion Palos Verdes (16-2) earned a No. 4 seed and eliminated visiting Loyola 11-7 on Wednesday and Westlake 13-5 in the second round on Friday. The Sea Kings advanced and defeated fifth-seeded Santa Barbara 9-9 (79-74) in the quarterfinals on Tuesday.
Tenth-seeded Peninsula (11-9) won its first-round home match against Dos Pueblos 11-7 but lost at sixth-seeded Calabasas 13-5 in the second round.
In Division 2, Chadwick (10-6) defeated Foothill 10-8 before knocking off fifth-seeded Beverly Hills 12-6 in the second round. The Dolphins lost to visiting Burroughs/Burbank 10-8 on Tuesday.
Pioneer champion South Torrance (11-7) defeated visiting Malibu 13-5 then lost at second-seeded Whitney 13-3 in the second round of the Division 3 playoffs.
North Torrance (6-12) saw its season end with a 15-3 first-round loss at No. 3 St. Margaret’s (11-2).
In Division 5, Del Rey champion Bishop Montgomery (13-3) knocked off visiting Whittier Christian 14-4 in the first round. The ninth-seeded Knights proceeded to eliminate No. 8 San Gorgonio 12-6 on Friday but lost at top-seeded Arlington 15-3 in the quarterfinals.
All matches with the exception of the finals are slated to start at 3 p.m. Complete brackets are available at www.cifss.org.
