Sophomore from Cranbury gives Peddie tennis team a boost
By: Rich Fisher
Like any teenage friends, Lauren Passannante and Sarah Kleinfelder have their inside jokes, they quote movies and they have little nicknames for each other.
The twist here is, they do it all within the course of a tennis match.
But hey, it works.
The two combined to win the NJISAA Prep A second doubles championship earlier this season, helping the Peddie School to a third place finish overall.
"We definitely surprised ourselves," said Passannante, a Cranbury resident. "In the very first round we had to play Blair, and they have three people from Bermuda so we didn’t know if we could beat them at all. When we did beat them, that was the first time we realized we could go far in the tournament."
The duo defeated Lawrenceville Prep in the second round, then faced Hun in a riveting final.
After losing the first set, 4-6, the two won the second, 7-6 with an 8-6 tiebreaker. They trailed 4-3, 5-4 and 6-5, tied it at 6-6, then won the tie-breaker after trailing 4-1 and 6-3.
After that, they cruised to victory in the third set, winning 6-3.
"That’s the thing with us," Passannante said. "Once we pull through the hard part, we just dominate. We have a bunch of inside jokes, we have nicknames for each other if we need to start getting intense. Sometimes we’ll use lines from movies to pump us up."
The girls could use an old New Jersey slogan to describe their partnership perfect together.
Last year, as a freshman, Passannante played doubles with Jenna Silvi and the two lost just one match. Silvi graduated and, at the start of this season, Passannante was teamed with Najah Woobey. But after a season-opening loss to East Brunswick, coach Brian DuBrule decided to shake up the lineup.
Woobey went to first doubles, and Passannante was teamed with Kleinfelder, a senior who was an extra on the Falcons last season.
"Najah’s a very good player, but the connection just wasn’t there to be doubles partners with her like it was with Kleinfelder," Passannante said. "With Sarah it’s just a mental thing. We get along well on the court."
The two have gone 11-2 so far this season, with their only match left against Blair. Passannante has also gone 2-2 at fourth singles in Mid-Atlantic Prep League play, and is 2-1 with Lauren Hamilton in MAPL doubles play. Overall, Passannante is 15-7 this year in singles and doubles.
Passannante’s success is a by-product of her off-season.
"I played more over the past summer than I had any other summer," she said. "I worked hard on different types of things, had a bunch of private lessons. I played every other day and played in tournaments every other weekend."
She proudly points out that she took second place in he Bucks County Racquet Club Tournament.
"That was a great experience, because I never thought I’d go that far in a tournament," Passannante said. "There was a little tension in the second game. An adult on the opponent’s side was arguing calls. But it was a good experience for me to get a feel of what could happen in the future."
Passannante grew up as a soccer player, playing the sport for nine years. When she arrived at Peddie in eighth grade, she opted for tennis over her lifelong love.
"It was hard for me not to do soccer at Peddie because I loved it so much," she said. "I seemed to bond better on the tennis team. I had my friends on the soccer team, but there were some cliques."
Her final season of organized soccer consisted of a stint with the Cranbury Soccer Club Cyclones. Due to practice with the Peddie JV team (where she lost just once as a singles player) Passannante was unable to make many Cyclone practices, so her playing time was limited.
She gave up the sport after 8th grade, but has fallen in love with tennis.
"I was never really into tennis until two years ago," she said. "Before that, I was just joining any camps my mom put me in, because my mom was a big tennis player and my brother (Anthony) was big in it.
"I was always more into soccer and basketball. But once I started getting better at tennis, I was really into it."
This past summer Passannante trained at Winning Touch Tennis in Plainsboro, where she improved numerous aspects of her game.
"All the other camps I went to were fun stuff," she said. "They were like ‘Can you hit the ball over the net?’ This really helped out a lot.
"I had privates at Winning Touch, they helped me learn how to move people around. You hit corners of the other side of the court. That’s my strategy, to move my opponent. That’s how I like to win. "
When playing doubles, Passannante guards the baseline while Kleinfelder takes charge at the net.
"If they give me the opportunity to come into the net, I’ll take that chance," she said. "I usually do well, but it’s not my strongest spot."
But hey, with a some hard work and a few more movie lines, Passannante will produce an allaround script on the court before too long.