The capital of WPIAL Class 2A tennis for the 2024-25 school year might be located in Cranberry Township.
North Catholic defeated Valley, 4-1, in the team tennis finals Wednesday at Janet Swanson Tennis Center at Washington & Jefferson.
It’s the first title in the North Catholic boys tennis program’s five-year history, and the boys will pair their trophy with the one the girls team won in the fall.
“It feels amazing,” North Catholic coach Eric Solverson said. “This is a great group of kids, and they fought really hard. Valley has an amazing team, and they bring so many fans that it really makes the atmosphere amazing. It was a privilege to play a match with them today.”
The day started out on a high note for Valley (13-1) as senior Landon Harclerode won 6-0, 6-2 over North Catholic’s Justin Garvey. After that, the Trojans (11-3) took three straight matches to claim the title.
The clinching match came down to second singles, where junior Alex Weber bested Tyler Quinn, 6-2, 6-4, in a match that seemed to go on forever.
“We went to deuce a lot, and it was a lot of back and forth with a lot of long games,” Weber said. “I think we were both out of energy at the end. It was a really great match.”
It had been a rough stretch for Weber the last couple of weeks. In the WPIAL doubles championships, he and partner Alex Lopez Foubert lost in the championship match.
Then when the Trojans took on Winchester Thurston in the second round of the team playoffs, Weber dropped the first set of his match 6-1 but recovered and has been victorious ever since.
“Webb’s confidence was down for a couple weeks after the doubles loss,” said Solverson. “But then he found something in that Winchester match and has been amazing since then.
“The last game today was unbelievable. He grinded out those points and even went down to a knee to slice the ball back. It’s all about max effort on every point with him, and it’s great to see. I’m really proud of him.”
Lopez Foubert won his third singles match 6-4, 6-2 over Valley’s Baxter Diehm. In doubles, North Catholic’s Jake Sinclair and Paddy McCabe defeated Jake Ervin and Josh Serena, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, and Brennan Lord and Jackson Schlegel topped Jackson Dameron and Maddox DeAntonio, 6-3, 7-5.
It was a bittersweet ending for Valley.
“What I’m most proud of is their intellectual evolution on the court,” Vikings coach Rachael Link said. “Sometimes this game gets emotional and you want to hit big points, but you have to be smart and you have to fix mistakes quickly.
“Absolute respect to North Catholic. They’re a stellar team, and it was close on all five courts and the match could have gone either way.”
After the medal ceremony, Link gathered her players for a huddle.
“Of course, it’s sad when you lose, but it was important for me, as their coach, that we paused and took a moment to be proud of the accomplishment of making it to the WPIAL finals,” Link said. “Now we focus on states.”
Link is confident the lessons her players have learned throughout the season, coupled with the tough competition they faced, will have them ready to make a run in the state playoffs.
“We set out this year to elevate every court,” said Link. “Our philosophy is all five courts are important. One isn’t more important than the others. We stuck to those basics, and they’ve embraced it and it’s what made them successful this year.
“I can’t say enough about Section 1-2A. Every match was stellar, and battling them prepared us to compete at this level. Each battle along the way was as tough as it should have been and prepared us to face North Catholic today, and our battle with the Trojans will have us prepared moving forward.”
Just don’t ask Link when her team is playing next.
“I’m pretty superstitious, and I didn’t look ahead,” Link said. “I didn’t know what day we’re playing or where for states. We were all focused on the match in front of us, and that will be the message going forward.”
As for Solverson, he is hoping his team can place a check mark next to the fourth and final goal they set at the start of their season.
“We set out to win our section, win WPIALs, make it to states and make it to Hershey,” Solverson said. “It’s been an amazing year and Tuesday we have a chance to get that final check.”
Class 3A
The WPIAL Class 3A title match between Gateway and North Allegheny came down to one match.
Unfortunately for the spectators sitting in the hot afternoon sun, they would have to wait a while for the outcome.
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North Allegheny’s first doubles pair of Adhav Ramadas and Nick Scheuring defeated Troy Boden and Abdulwassay, 6-0, 6-0, and the Tigers second pairing of Shivum Telang and Ronit Ginde won 6-2, 6-1 over the Gators’ Abuzar Hameez and Isaac Sha to spot the Tigers an early 2-0 lead in the match.
But the Gators (12-0) were able to lean on their strength and swept the singles matches for a 3-2 win over North Allegheny (15-2) at Washington & Jefferson.
“I just have to take my hat off to Gateway. They played a great match and all three of their singles players just played phenomenal today,” said Tigers coach Matt Woffington. “We thought we could get one of the top two, but it just didn’t work out.”
The Gators’ win prevented North Allegheny from repeating as champions and gave Gateway its second title in three years.
“After losing last year, winning the year before that and coming back to win it again here today, it’s just amazing,” said Gators coach Matt Stockunas. “Our singles were just lights-out, and that second singles was just an incredible match.”
Gateway junior Logan Memije beat NA’s Srivatsau, 6-2, 6-1, in third singles and was able to watch his brother, Adam, take on Advaita Sircar in the first singles match.
It was the third time in a year Adam Memije and Sircar faced each other, with their last match coming in the WPIAL singles finals where Memije came out triumphant after a three hour duel.
Not to worry on this afternoon, as Memije won 6-3, 6-0, which left the match in the hands of the two No. 2 singles competitors.
It was a fierce battle between North Allegheny’s Evan Kaufman and Gateway’s Zidaan Hassan in second singles that would decide the title. Neither player gave any ground.
Hassan rallied from being down at the break in both sets to come away with a 7-6 (4), 6-4 victory.
“I try not to look at it like I’m super down, I just try to play every point that’s in regardless of the score,” Hassan said afterwards. “I don’t think too much about the score when I’m trying to get it back to level.”
Hassan had to really focus and put in a lot of work as the match lasted two hours.
“I’m really thankful that I’ve been in pretty good shape this year,” said Hassan. “I’ve been doing a lot of fitness and a lot of running. I’m happy that I was able to stay steady with my energy throughout the match and not move around a lot.”
When asked what kept him going throughout the match, Hassan gave credit to the support from his teammates and the Gateway crowd.
“When you get the crowd going and the teams fired up, you get a little more emotionally involved, and it helps push you over the finish line,” Hassan said.
“Zidaan is just very resilient, and he just focused on getting the ball high over the net with a lot of spin,” said Stockunas. “He was struggling with his first serve, so he switched to his second serve and was trying to keep the ball more to the left and it worked. I’m just ecstatic.”
The win gives Gateway three WPIAL boys tennis championships.
Now it’s off to states Tuesday for both teams.
“We have to get a couple of practices in before Tuesday, and we just have to keep the ultimate goal in mind and we’ll get right back to work on Tuesday,” said Woffington.
North Allegheny will travel to take on the District 10 champion.
Gateway will play closer to home and will await the announcement of their opponent.
“We’ve been to states before,” said Stockunas. “I think we have more competitive doubles this year, but at the state level, the competition is really good. I feel we have the top three singles players, not just in the WPIAL, but the state. Hopefully that will carry us pretty far.”