Westfield Tennis Midseason 2004

By almost any measurement this has been a most unusual season for the Westfield Tennis team. After eleven matches the Blue Devils find themselves with a most uncharacteristic
record of 5-6. In his fourteen previous seasons as coach ,George Kapner,had lost only 67 matches an average of less than five per season.

To try and turn things around, Kapner decided to reopen challenge matches which resulted in several lineup changes. Alec Jaslow supplanted Rich Moran as first singles with Moran moving to 2nd singles. Lee Bernstein remained at 3rd singles. Alec Wasserman and Brian Kender are now at1st doubles with Adam Gerckens and Andrew Levy are at 2nd doubles.

So far the results have not changed. The Blue Devils were shut out last Thursday by one of the top teams in the state, East Brunswick. Although they lost three time county champions David Eisenberg to graduation, Westfield had reason for optimism with
five returning lettermen from a 19-5 team that won a sectional championship and finished second in the Union County Tournament and the Group IV finals.

Going into the season Kapner had said "Our goal is to win back the county championship from Summit and return to the state finals and win them .”

Westfield had a big match with sectional rival Bridgewater-Raritan, Wednesday.
. "Last year, we beat them in the regular season, but winning the Group IV state championship means going through Bridgewater," Kapner said. "They are our biggest road block."

In recent years the Union County tournament has usually evolved into almost a f\dual meet between Westfield and Summit and Kapner thinks it will come down to the two schools again. “Summit is not as dominant as they have been, but they have already
beaten us in a dual match, 3-2. ,” said Kapner.