Ward Melville boys hungry for county tennis title
Gabe Burstzyn of Ward Melville volleys in a match against Harborfields on Friday at Ward Meville. Credit: Neil Miller
Few things motivate a team like reaching a county championship contest and losing. Now imagine it happens a second year in a row. Against the same opponent.
That should provide a window into what’s going on for the Ward Melville boys tennis team this season as it hopes for one more crack at Suffolk front-runner and two-time defending champion Commack.
“I’d say winning the championship is a topic that comes up just about every day,” junior Gabe Bursztyn said. “Those conversations almost always end up with talking about getting another chance to beat Commack.”
The Patriots certainly appear headed in the right directions at 14-0 overall and 11-0 in Suffolk III. The team is an army with 23 players, 22 whom have played in a regular season match.
“We’re as deep as we’ve been and we’re blessed to have the types of kids who play all year round,” Ward Melville coach Erick Sussin said. “There is competitive experience up and down our roster . . . but the key is to just focus on the next match.”
Junior Harshith Pennabadi is unbeaten at first singles. Sophomore Shashank Pennabadi has split time evenly between playing singles and doubles and also has not lost. Bursztyn typically plays doubles — often with Robbie Monticciolo — but occasionally plays singles and has lost just once, in singles.
Robbie Monticciolo of Ward Melville volleys in a match against Harborfields on Friday. Credit: Neil Miller
“We are deeper but there’s more to be [optimistic] about with us,” Harshith Pennabadi said. “When we got back for this season, it was like everyone had been training hard in the offseason. The quality of our play is better from top to bottom.”
“If you look at the [entries] we put in at fourth singles and third doubles, we aren’t just filling positions like other teams do,” said Bursztyn who was sidelined much of last season with a back injury “These are players who would be playing higher positions on most other teams . . . Some of the players up from middle school are really good.”
A particular revelation has been eighth-grader Aidan Thomas, who is playing fourth singles. Bursztyn said of him “watch how he handles situations and does all the essentials well — he is going to be great.”
Herricks rallies
The race to the top of Nassau Conference II got interesting this past week when Herricks secured a 4-3 victory over Friends Academy. The Highlanders dropped their first match to Friends and so the teams ended this week with one loss apiece in conference play.
The deciding match was a three-set barnburner at fourth doubles between the Highlanders’ Chris Frangopoulos, a senior, and Alex Frangopoulos, a sophomore, and the Quakers’ Ryder Kazerman and Henry Koelmel.
Kazerman and Koelmel dispatched the Frangopouloses in straight sets in the teams’ first meeting. However, the brothers staged a wild comeback as the rest of the teams gathered around their match and won the final five games of the third set to complete a 6-0, 4-6, 7-5 victory.
“Friends is so good and the brothers might have been a little intimidated and the way [Kazerman and Koelmel] communicated so well with hand signals in their first meeting,” Herricks coach Ray Cross said. “It certainly didn’t look good on paper before the match and again when they were down, 5-2, in the third set. But our guys never gave in and we were able to get one back from them.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
