Brentwood School Tennis Nipped in Quarterfinals

For more than a decade, reaching the CIF Southern Section tennis finals has been an annual event for the Brentwood School boys tennis team. The Eagles had made their division championship match 11 straight times heading into this season.

Coach Lee Herzog knew extending that streak would be extremely difficult given that this spring Brentwood was bumped up to Division I--the highest in Southern California.

Still, the Eagles won the Alpha League title and were awarded the No. 7 seed in the playoffs. Brentwood beat Fullerton 17-1 in the first round and Northwood 11-7 in the second round.

Rarely has Brentwood been the underdog since its string of consecutive CIF finals started in 1999, but that's the position the Eagles found themselves in Wednesday against second-seeded Palos Verdes.

The quarterfinal match was knotted 6-6 after two rotations of round robin play and, despite a clutch singles win by TJ Pura over Palos Verdes' No. 2 player Eric Lim, Brentwood lost 10-8, bringing an abrupt end to the Eagles' streak and their season.

"It's such an honor to play on this team with these guys," said Pura, who avenged his loss to Lim in a dual match last season. "We knew it would be really tough. I'm sad it's over."

Pura swept his three sets to provide the Eagles their only singles points. Brentwood stacked its doubles, pairing No. 2 singles player Adam Schwartz with Kevin Bral at the No. 2 spot and partnering No. 3 singles player Victor Vu with Graham Sawyer at No. 1 doubles. 

The strategy almost worked. Schwartz and Bral swept, 6-1, 6-3, 6-3, while Vu and Sawyer won their first set, 6-2, and took a 3-0 lead in a tiebreaker against the Sea Kings' No. 3 duo before falling 7-4.

"We had our chances, but that tiebreaker was the turning point," Herzog said. "Still, making the quarterfinals our first year in Division I is respectable. Palos Verdes is a more experienced team and I think it surprised them how well we played."

Brentwood (18-3) had a chance to level the match 9-9 (at which point the outcome would be decided by the total number of games won), but Alex Rose and Oliver Peyron to Palos Verdes' top tandem, 7-5, despite Peyron erasing a set point with a well-placed topspin lob that bounced one foot inside the baseline.

"This was a hardfought match and I couldn't ask for more," Herzog told his players afterwards. "You can hold your heads high. It was a terrific season."

Next up for the Eagles is the Southern Section Individual Tournament, which begins Friday.