Boys Tennis Wins Team Championship

As the final match of the South-West Conference boys tennis championship came to its conclusion, Newtown's Pete Manos, a senior captain for the Nighthawks, and some teammates decided the win called for a celebration. 

While Rich Andreotta, a senior for the Nighthawks, distracted Newtown's coach Marty Margulies,  Manos and other teammates grabbed the team's water cooler, ran up behind Margulies and dumped the water on his head.

For Newtown, this celebration was warranted. Its 4-3 win against Weston Monday afternoon at Treadwell Park solidified its dominance in the South-West conference, and proved a victory against Weston, a perennial conference powerhouse, earlier this year wasn't a fluke.

"I am so inexpressively proud of these kids," said Margulies. "Coming into this season I knew we were going to be good, but I would have never guessed that we would be this good."

One thing for sure, Margulies couldn't have expected this much success against Weston. Before the season, the Nighthawks hadn't beaten the Trojans in more than a decade, and according to Margulies hadn't even been close.

"I don't think we even won a single match in the last few years," Margulies said. "But we are a very experienced team, and because of that we're capable of achieving this."

Weston started off the match strong as Jeremy Schwartz powered past Newtown's Timo Roehrs in the one singles match, 6-0, 6-1.

In the No. 2 singles match, Manos had the opportunity to swing the momentum to Newtown. But he struggled early on, frustrated with his unforced errors, Manos played visibly upset, and trailed Cameron Hagen 2-4 in the first set.

"Pete has a way of getting down on himself," Margulies said. "So instead of just battling against one player, he battles against two: his opponent and himself."

But in this match Manos conquered himself.  Playing more composed, Manos's strong play coupled with two double faults by Hagen allowed Manos to break Hagen's serve and tie the score at 4-4.

From there the two players battled into a tiebreaker where Manos edged Hagen 7-5, and eventually went on to win the match in straight sets, 7-6, 6-3.

"When I was down, I tried focusing on not making as many mistakes," Manos said. "I just tried to keep the ball in play and force him to make the mistakes."

Newtown's Rob Beier and Casey Tenney followed Manos and won their singles match, which gave Newtown a 3-1 edge heading into doubles play. That meant the Nighthawks only needed to win one of the three doubles matches in order to win the conference championship.

"We found out in the middle of the first set that all we had to do was win our match to win the championship," said Connor Howell, a member of the No. 1 doubles team for Newtown. "It was some pressure added, but we knew we couldn't let our nerves affect us. We tried to play relaxed because we knew they were the ones who had the pressure on them."

Unfortunately for Howell and his partner Colin Jacob, brothers Harrison and Jon Lipsitz came out firing and won the first set 6-3. 

"We had to put it behind us," Jacob said. "We had to stay focused and not let our first set loss affect the way we played the rest of the match. "

Jacob and Howell came out much sharper in the second set, and did a good job of limiting their unforced errors and hitting quality overhand shots. But the Lipsitz brothers didn't let up, and both sides battled. Down 5-6, Jacob and Powell faced match point four times, but were able fight back and send the set to a tiebreaker.

The tiebreaker really epitomized how the match was played. Back and forth both duos hit terrific shots, and fought to stay alive. Eventually Jacob and Howell were just too much for the Lipsitz brothers to handle and they won the tiebreaker 10-8. 

The duo rode their momentum into the third set -- where it seemed like both Jon and Harrison Lipsitz had run out of gas -- and won 6-0.

After the final point of the tremendous game, Manos rushed the court and lifted Jacob in victory.  It was Newtown's first SWC Championship in the program's history, and for the seniors it was a great way to end their career.

"This is a great feeling," Manos said. "It feels good because we came into this season with the attitude that we wanted to win.  We had great leaders this year, which made this possible for us to achieve."

Next for some of Newtown's players will be the individual championships, which start Wednesday.

Jeremy Schwartz def. Timo Roehrs (N): 6-0, 6-1

Pete Manos (N) def. Cameron Hagen: 7-6(5), 6-3

Rob Beier (N) def Ben Smith: 7-6(5), 6-1

Casey Tenney (N) def. David Freeman: 7-5, 6-4

Colin Jacob and Connor Howell (N). def. Harrison Lipsitz and Jon LIpsitz: 3-6, 7-6(8), 6-0

Josh Simon and Kyle Guerin def. Rich Andreotta and Tyler Ruefenacht (N):4-6, 6-0, 7-6(1)

Matt Wasserman and Zach Levine def. Cam McCleary and Max Paynter (N): 6-4, 6-2