They won the Group 4 title. They won the Tournament of Champions title. He helped his team to an incredible 121-6 record over his four year career.
For Graeme Stahl, one of the four graduating senior captains on the Westfield Blue Devils boy's tennis team, it's all about keeping things in perspective.
Coming into the season, Stahl was hoping for success, but realized there was a chance that the team was going to have a difficult go at that success.
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"I knew this season was going to be one of the tougher ones," said Stahl. "We lost a few key seniors but we knew that we still had a lot of talent. It took a while to gain our bearings and we were fortunate for everything to come together."
One of the reasons for the cautious optimism was the loss of one of his friends and senior captain, Adam Reich, to double hip surgery.
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With that in mind there was a simple goal and mindset.
"In the very beginning of the year we wanted to win Group 4 as a goal," said Stahl, who will be attending the University of Pennslyvania in the fall.
Anything beyond that was icing on the cake."
He continued to keep things in perspective, and that goal changed, as well as that mindset, once Reich came back.
"Adam is very talented," said Stahl. "It was a big emotional impact. Our goals and expectations changed later in the year when he came back."
This is not saying that Stahl wasn't important to the team. He helped anchor first doubles during their championship run, and won his first doubles match with Alan Chu in their Tournament of Champions win in the finals against Chatham, a crucial match considering Westfield only beat Chatham 3-2. In the 2009 season he captured the state doubles championship with Scott Bernstein.
This is all nice and something to be proud of, but once again Stahl keeps all the success, as well as his high school career in perspective.
"It was amazing," said Stahl, who started playing tennis when he was seven years old . "I couldn't have wished for anything more in my high school career. The other captains and I have been really close since seventh grade. We knew we could be a special team."
Editor's Note: This is the third in a four part series on the captains of the 2010 state champion Westfield High School boys tennis team.
