Well, that didn’t take long

In the brief time allotted, South qualifies for states in doubles and as a team

By: Rich Fisher
   There’s an old joke that when people are driving through a small town, the driver says something like "This is a nice town, wasn’t it?"
   Well, it’s kind of like that with the state tournament cutoff in tennis — "We’ll have a chance to qualify, didn’t we?"
   Basically, the season starts, and the next thing you know, the cutoff is long past.
   This year’s season began on Sept. 8, and the qualifying deadline was Wednesday. That gives teams all of 13 days to get their record to .500, along with any doubles or singles players who hope to qualify.
   Fortunately for South Brunswick High, the Vikings got off to a strong start so Tuesday’s grueling, 3-2 loss to J.P. Stevens did not hurt them as they had a 4-2 record.
   The first doubles team of Meredith Ragany and Meena Ramachandra also qualified, but freshman first singles player Alison Noll was left out as she still tries to find her footing early in her high school career.
   What’s wrong Ali, two weeks aren’t long enough to figure out the ropes?
   "Ali Noll is one of the better players in the county," McDonald said. "She deserves an opportunity to try to prove herself by at least playing half the scheduled matches to try to qualify."
   At least the team itself was not hurt by the lunacy.
   "Most importantly, the team did qualify again, and I think it’s the first time for doubles," McDonald said. "We qualified after playing only six out of the scheduled 19 matches. The cutoff does seem extremely early. Most of the other sports have until September 28th or later as their cutoff. Since this is my first year coaching tennis in the fall, I’m not really sure why it is so early.
   "Fortunately we were able to qualify both our team and first doubles. But unfortunately a quality singles player will not have an opportunity to play in the singles tournament and I think the short cutoff date took away her chances and helped weaker teams and players get into the tournament. The state really needs to look at the tennis tournament deadlines"
   The Vikings had two matches rained out, meaning six was the magic number by the time the qualifying date was here.
   If that sounds ludicrous, consider Monroe. The Falcons needed to win on Wednesday to qualify. That would have left their record at 2-1.
   Three matches!
   Is it any wonder most teams in the state are trying to frontload their schedules with non-conference pansies.
   "Selective scheduling early in the season becomes a real concern for a lot of coaches," McDonald said. "If the dates don’t change for next year, I will definitely look to reshuffle the potential losses a different way."
   McDonald then summed it up the way a lot of coaches probably do.
   "Oh well," she said.
   Imagine what the teams that didn’t qualify are saying.
   LOBS: Divya Toshniwal challenged her way up to second singles, but lost to J.P. Stevens. Ambica Buddhavayapu is now third singles. Ragany-Ramachandra and Sindhu Shamasunder-Prasannah Ashokkumar both won at doubles against Stevens.