By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
James Hopper and Chris Guo capped off a perfect year with a perfect performance.
The Montgomery High doubles players completed an undefeated season by capturing the state doubles championship with a 6-1, 6-1 victory over the Mountain Lakes team of Ethan and Oliver Whang.
The win in the state doubles tournament capped off a remarkable season for the Cougars, who as a team went undefeated to win the Tournament of Champions title. Montgomery had two of its singles players – Vishnu Joshi and Ishaan Ravichander – face each other in the state singles semifinals, with Joshi advancing to the final where he lost to West Windsor-Plainsboro South’s Robert Sinakowicz. The Cougars’ second doubles team of Liam Lynch and Philip Szkudlarski reached the semifinals of the doubles tournament before falling to the Whang brothers from Mountain Lakes.
“It was a pretty incredible season,” Guo said. “I think the highlight was the TOC final and sharing that moment with our friends on the team and our family.”
The doubles title was the second in the last three years for the Montgomery boys, who captured the title in 2015 when Zach Anderson and Nikil Poncha won the tournament.
The Cougars clearly established themselves as the best team in the state this year and the singles and doubles tournaments helped solidify that as the Cougars players went into the semifinals in both tournaments.
“By the end of the tournament we had played most of the teams in the regular season, so we knew what to expect,” Hopper said. “We knew we had to prepare ourselves for what we knew was coming. We knew every team would try their best and give us a tough fight.
“We knew we had to be careful of everybody. But we also had to rely on our abilities to get us through, especially in the WW-P South match in the sectionals and also the Westfield match in the Group 4 semis where we went down a set. We had to trust our abilities to pull through.”
Only twice this season did Guo and Hopper lose a set in a match. And in the state doubles tournament they won every match in straight sets.
“With the undefeated season and the No. 1 seed we tried not to let that get into our head to much,” Guo said. “We knew anyone could beat us and we could beat anyone. We tried to stay humble and not go into any match overconfident.”
This year’s Montgomery team was filled with so much talent it made practices as competitive as matches, which helped make everyone on the team better.
“That led into our motivation for practice and how motivated we were,” Hopper said. “We knew when we were practicing that it would be the highest quality opponent we would face until near the end of the season. We had to go full out and we knew all those days of going against high quality players would pay off.”
From top to bottom it was a remarkable season for the Cougars.
“It was definitely an impressive feat,” Guo said of everything Montgomery accomplished this season. “At the beginning of the season we knew we had the potential to win the TOC as a team. It seemed like a distant reality to win that and also win individual states. It all seems kind of surreal.
“In the individual tournament even though we were seemingly on our own, with all the players we had in the semis it still felt like we had that team dynamic and that helped us get through.”
In the end, the Cougars had the kind of a season that may never be replicated again. They won the TOC as a team, had the state doubles champions. placed another doubles team in the semifinals and had singles players who reached the semifinals and finals.
“I definitely feel like winning the team TOC was a lot more fun and exciting to win because you have the team atmosphere,” Hopper said. “Even though most of our team went deep in the individual tournament, you’re still competing for yourself. In the TOC you want to win for the school and knowing the school name will be there in the record books.”
