By: Ken Weingartner
Matt Sepe and Kevin Murtha saw their season end with a loss in the second round of the NJSIAA doubles tournament, but it was one of the few setbacks suffered by the duo in yet another solid season for the Monroe Township High tennis team.
Sepe and Murtha lost 6-0, 6-1 to Vineland’s Tom Dovnarsky and Jay Roth. The Vineland squad was seeded in the 9-17 bracket, where the squads are placed alphabetically. Sepe and Murtha, both juniors, finished the year 20-3 and finished third in the Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament at first doubles.
"I thought we could have won, but we just played really bad that day," Sepe said about the match in the state tourney. "Everything went wrong."
This season marked the second trip to the state tourney for Sepe and Murtha, and a similar result. Last year, the pair advanced to the second round without playing a match before losing to No. 6-seeded Pingry.
"I’d rather play in that (first) round," Sepe said. "We don’t play a match for a week and a half, so it would be good to get a match before the next round; at least we’d get to play more."
Sepe and Murtha, who went 18-7 last season, spent the time leading to the state tourney trying to remain sharp with drills.
"We mix it up; we don’t do the same things every day, so it’s not that bad," Sepe said. "One day, we’ll just play; another day we’ll do volleys or work on overheads. We don’t just drill and hit shots, we play out the points, so we can try to improve."
Just days after losing in the state tourney, Sepe and Murtha were making plans to work on their games in a summer camp at Monroe. The players meet four days a week for six weeks and spend two days a week on drills and two on playing matches.
"It’s a good way to keep playing in the summer and keep getting better," Sepe said. "I like it because it’s structured."
Monroe finished 14-4 as a team and graduates only No. 1 singles player Jasmin Laferriere.
"The season went pretty well," Sepe said. "The team did well; we came close to winning the division. Maybe next year."

