VERONICA YANKOWSKI Dillon Denardo and Barry Brown, both of Millstone, practice lacrosse during a recent clinic in Millstone. The sport is continuing to gain popularity across the state, with a number of schools looking into developing programs in the near future.
In just his third year as the girls tennis coach at Allentown High School, Dan Fallon has seen some improvement in his program.
Playing in a very competitive Colonial Valley Conference, a conference loaded with perennial powerhouses, the Redbirds continue to improve, despite losing its top four starters from last year’s squad to graduation.
Fallon’s squad has managed to go 4-8 thus far, with wins over Trenton, Hamilton West and Ewing (twice) to their credit. The girls are scheduled to have four more matches this week to close out the year with Saturday’s match-up with Hopewell Valley serving as the closer.
"We’ve got these four matches left this week, with the good possibility of winning one of them," Fallon said. "The rest of the matches are teams we’ve played already this year and simply don’t match up well with."
At 4-8, the Redbirds have done well to exceed the coach’s expectations. And with a young nucleus of players on both the varsity and jayvee squads, Fallon is optimistic about the program’s future.
"Coming in, my expectations were for a tough season," he said. "We lost four starting players, so obviously I wasn’t expecting too much. But we’ve managed to win four matches, which I wasn’t sure we could do, so we’ve done well.
"And we’re going to have a number of girls coming back next year, so I’m looking forward to continued improvement."
Leading the way for Allentown this year has been a pair of sophomores who have been steadily improving with each match.
Jenn Harrison is the first singles player, and is followed up in the second spot by Brianna Feola.
Another sophomore, Cheryl Grabowksi is the third singles player, and has also been solid throughout the campaign.
Having the three sophomores starting this season bodes well for the Redbirds, as the experience will only help them in their final two years of high school play.
The first doubles team is made up of team co-captains, seniors Kim Canzanella and Steph Weber. Fallon said that the two seniors are the heart of the team, and he will be sad to see them go following the season.
At the second doubles team are junior Elaine Lee and another sophomore, Jessica Horner.
"We’re a pretty young team, but we’ve made some positive strides," Fallon said. "This is just our second year in the CVC, and I think everybody knows the powerhouses that exist there, but I fell we’ve done well to this point."
Fallon said that although he is looking forward to continued improvement, he feels a lot of it depends on the outcome of the Dec. 11 referendum question, which if passed, would provide the team with its own facilities.
Currently, the team holds it practices and its matches at a nearby country club, which is an extreme disadvantage, according to Fallon.
"There’s only four courts there, and you need five, so our matches take between three and four hours, which is just too long," he said. "There are no courts in Allentown or Upper Freehold we can use for practice, so we have to travel."
The referendum carries a proposed cost of $18 million with $5.5 million coming from a state grant, and would provide funding for major school renovations to all of the Upper Freehold Regional School District, as well as parking and the sports facilities.
Fallon said that he is hopeful that the referendum will be passed, and stressed how important it is to the success of his program.
"It becomes much easier to build a program with the proper facilities," he said. "It appears to be something that either happens now, or not at all, but with the state pitching in with about 40 percent, I don’t see why it wouldn’t pass.
"If it does pass, our school will finally have the facilities worthy of the people that are in it."
Having that home-field advantage will certainly help the program, and although the tennis courts are only a small part of the overall goal of the referendum for Fallon and his team, it is the most important part.