2005 Boys Union County Tennis Review

There was drama until the final match at the Union County Tennis Tournament as Westfield and record-breaking coach George Kapner wrested the title back from Summit for the first time since 1998 Friday at Donald Van Blake Courts in Plainfield. The Blue Devils, who earlier in the week had made Kapner the winningest coach in Westfield history, pulled out an 81-76 squeaker over the Hilltoppers on a victory by the second-doubles team of Andrew Levy and Jack Trimble. 5-7, 7-5, 6-3, over Summit's Vir Singh and Ben Sangree.

Westfield also got victories from freshman second singles
Kevin Shallcross and the first doubles team of Brian Kender and Lee Bernstein. as well as a second from freshman third singles Ravi Netravali. Both doubles teams defeated a Summit pair as the Blue Devils won two of the three head to head matches in the finals against their rivals to give Kapner his eighth and perhaps most gratifying Union County Tennis title.

“It’s extremely satisfying ,” said Kapner.
“Summit and Scotch Plains-Fanwood were very worthy adversaries so it certainly was not an easy task. More important to me, however, was that the team, all five positions, has been getting stronger and more confident in the last two weeks. It is very gratifying to see all their hard work come to fruition.”

Kapner was effusive in his praise for his doubles teams.
“As a high school tennis coach, there is only so much you can do with singles players in the short high school season,” said Kapner.

“But your doubles teams have to be put together from scratch and taught how to play doubles when their training heretofore has been almost exclusively in singles. I have to give most of the credit
to two seniors, Brian Kender and Andrew Levy, who took two underclassmen, Lee Bernstein and Jack Trimble, under their wings and made them top notch doubles players.”

Scotch Plains-Fanwood also had an excellent tournament finishing third with sixty points but the Raiders may have hoped for more after joining Summit as the only two teams to advance everybody to the semi finals. It set up a quasi-dual meet with the six time defending champions, which Summit took 3-1. The only SPF player to advance to the finals was freshman second singles player Ryan Krueger, who would lose in the finals to Shallcross for the second time this year but Raider coach Mark Cunnington was pleased with his effort.

“Ryan has definitely turned the corner ,” said Cunnington.
“The semi final match is a match he doesn’t win earlier in the year, but Ryan has toughened up and learned how to win the big points.”

After going 10-0 on Thursday, the Raiders appeared to be off to a great start Friday as both their double teams took early leads in their matches with Summit only to fall in close matches.

Seniors Billy Albizati and Jeremy Sanders would recover to finish third on first doubles, while senior Greg Leischner and freshman Scott Leyden would do likewise on second doubles.

Seniors Jason Kruger and John Altman finished fourth on first and third singles respectively.

The Blue Devils had started the week by upsetting eleventh ranked Bergen Catholic 3-2 to give Kapner his 740th victory, spanning six sports one more than legendary Westfield Coach Gary Kehler.

“It is certainly a milestone ,” said Kapner.
“ I have spent a great deal of time recently thinking back over all the wonderful and talented young people, many of whom are now
well past being called young, who I have had the honor of coaching over the last three decades at WHS. “

Kapner grasped the irony of breaking the record of another man with the initials “GK”.

“I am humbled by the thought that my name will forever be linked with the name Gary Kehler. He was a mentor to me in the late
1970's and 1980's as I was developing my coaching career and he is, without a doubt, not only the greatest coach in the history of WHS, but one of a handful of the greatest coaches in New Jersey history”