Boys Ace County Championship

The wait is over.

After 27 years of close calls and almost wins, the Essex County tennis championship has finally made its way back to Livingston.

The Lancers overwhelmed the Miller boys, 4-1, in the ECT final on Thursday.  For the Lancers, it was their first title since 1983.  

Livingston controlled the match from start to finish, and besides a strong performance at second doubles for Millburn, Livingston won comfortably in all of its matches.

"Livingston played better today. Plain and simple," said Millburn head coach Bill Wickenheisser. "I knew it was going to be a tough match no matter who we played. I'm happy for coach Lovi, I know it has been a long time."

Varun Dayapa came into today's contest at third singles, having never beaten Millburn's Jared Wishnow. Dayapa surely picked a good day to start, and he had everything working. The Lancer jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in the opening set and never looked back, cruising to a 6-0, 6-1 win, clinching the third and winning point for the Lancers.

"We have a great coach, Elliot Lovi, he's one of the greatest coaches in this nation," Dayapa said. "It's great. Twenty seven years, I'm glad to win it and end this drought. It feels great. Against one of our rivals, Millburn, it's even better."

The first Lancers on the board were at first doubles, with Ben Hanft and Jesse Bloom rolling to an easy 6-1, 6-0 victory over Nikhil Vohra and Dan Feldman. At the time, the win tied the score at one, after Millburn brothers Nicky Schmidt and Sebastian Schmidt also won easily 6-1, 6-0 against Spencer Luster and Kevin Sun at second doubles. But even at that point, things did not look good for the Millers, who had already dropped the first set in the other four matches.

"We had a motto this week: this is the week we're going to unleash the Lancers. That was our theme," Lovi said. "We really haven't had our team together until about a week ago.  We've been playing the whole season with patch work with different guys. We have a lot of talent. Honestly, I think a lot of people kind of overlooked us."

Livingston's second point came at second singles, where Brandon Goldstein also jumped out to an early 3-0 lead, and seized control of the match. He went on to win 6-1, 6-2 over Robert Xie.

The final point for Livingston came in the closest match of the contest, where Livingston team ace Thomas Caputo bested Millburn's Eric Cohen at first singles 6-3, 6-3. It was Caputo's second straight county championship, winning it as a member of Newark Academy a season ago, also against Millburn.

"The kids were really focused today. I think they had tremendous enthusiasm," Lovi said. "A lot of that is because of Thomas Caputo. He has brought incredible energy to this team."

When Livingston last won the championship, coach Lovi was in his ninth year at the helm, Ronald Reagan was President, gas was $1.24 per gallon, Return of The Jedi was the top grossing movie and Dallas as well as Dynasty were still on air.

"Twenty seven years is a long time. The kids were aware of it, we've been runner up several times," Lovi said. "Montclair Kimberley Academy beat us two years ago, other than that, it has been dominated by Millburn and Newark Academy. It feels great."

It was an unusual performance for the Millers, who did not force one third set and were not really close to Livingston. The Millers were vying for their 12th county championship since 1970, and their fourth since the year 2000.

"Getting to the finals is always nice. Of course, it's better when you win. Losing is not as enjoyable as winning," Wickenheisser said. "It lets us know that we have some work to do."

In the semifinals, played in the morning and early afternoon, Millburn edged Solomon Schechter 3-2, while Livingston won 3-2 over in-town rival, Newark Academy. The Millers and Lancers could meet again this weekend at the annual Newark Academy Tournament.