WW-P South boys’ tennis will face CHE on Thursday
By: Justin Feil
West Windsor-Plainsboro South topped an old sectional rival, East Brunswick, for its third straight Central Jersey Group IV boys’ tennis crown Monday.
At the same time in the Group III final, Princeton High School was losing in a budding sectional rivalry to Moorestown.
WW-P South used its balance top to bottom for a 5-0 win over East Brunswick. It was the third time in four years that the teams have met in the finals. The Pirates lost in 2004, 3-2, but exacted revenge with a 3-2 win in 2005. After topping Hillsborough last year for the sectional title, the Pirates again topped East Brunswick in what has become a big matchup.
"It has been for a long time," said Pirates head coach Jim Giovacchini after his team improved to 19-0. "It’s great to be sectional champion three times in a row."
With the win, the Pirates advance to play South Jersey IV champion Cherry Hill East 9 a.m. Thursday at Mercer County Park. With a win, they would face the winner of North Jersey 2, Group IV champion Westfield and North Jersey 1, Group IV winner Ridgewood approximately 1 p.m. Thursday. The Pirates are preparing for their toughest matches of the year, beginning Thursday morning.
"Their No. 1 is the best in the state and their No. 2 is really solid," Giovacchini said of CHE. "Their 3 is a fantastic 3 and I would venture to guess their doubles are the weakest part of the team."
Monday, only WW-P South’s first doubles needed three sets to dispose of their East Brunswick opponents. Leland Richardson was the most convincing winner at first singles, and Steven and Stewart Fernandez picked up solid wins at second and third singles respectively. Ben Cornfeld and Demetri Vrahnos picked up the deciding point at second doubles before Piray Sekar and Junjiro Mori made it a clean sweep with a 7-5 win in the tiebreaker set.
"I knew their doubles would be solid and their third singles would be solid also," Giovacchini said. "Steven came up real big.
"(Second doubles) they’ve been strong all year. At the beginning of the year, it looked like it would be our weakest position and here we are into the state semifinals and they’re our strongest position. I’m very pleased with them."
Princeton was seeded fifth by record in the CJ III, and had upset fourth-seeded Monroe and top-seeded Freehold Boro to reach the sectional final. There, for the first time, they faced Moorestown for the crown.
"It’s sectional final so they wanted to play their best," said PHS head coach Sarah Heyman. "We were just hoping we’d be able to pull an upset."
The upset did not happen as the Little Tigers took just one set off Moorestown as a team. When the close games went Moorestown’s way, they were able to wrap up their first CJ III title.
"They’re the No. 4 team in the state," Heyman said. "We knew they’d be good. We knew it would be a tough match, but we also have some good players on our team. We were hoping they’d play up to their potential and give them a run for the money.
"They started out fairly competitive. We were within a couple games in all the positions in the beginning. They played the big points better than we did. Despite the fact that we were close to them in games, we weren’t able to put points together when it counted."
Four of the Little Tigers’ five flights lost first sets in the semifinal win over Freehold Boro on Thursday, but PHS could not rally after again winning just one first set Monday. Only freshman Kevin Cen at second singles won a first set.
"Kevin played a great first set," Heyman said. "He won the first set. He was really aggressive and was hitting his shots nicely. He kept them controlled but hit with pace. He came out strong. Perhaps he lost a little focus when some matches around him ended not in our favor. He got up, 4-1, in the third, but he’s a freshman and he was playing a senior and maybe some match experience came into play."
Match experience is something that the Little Tigers would appear to have an edge in after this season. PHS will wrap up its year by going after the Colonial Valley Conference Patriot Division with four matches scheduled for this week. The Little Tigers won’t be playing in the Group III state matches Thursday, but they have the potential to do so next year. And they’d likely have to go through Moorestown to get there.
"They are supposed to lose four seniors, including their first and second singles and their first doubles," Heyman said. "Hopefully, we’re only losing second doubles (Aaron Maltby and Andrew Bergman). If it comes to a rematch, hopefully we’ll hold up a little better."