Clarkstown North Boys Tennis Seeks to Defend Title with Another Undefeated Season

Clarkstown North boys tennis opened up its season with a victory over Nyack on a cold and windy, yet sunny Monday afternoon.

Nyack played up in the non-league match to face North.  They played hard, but were unable to take home the win against the defending champs.

Grant Germano won first singles and Neil Ramaswamy won second singles 6-1, 6-0 and 7-6, 6-0, respectively.  Nyack won third doubles by forfeit.  Jeremy Chaitin and Spencer Pilavin won first doubles 6-2, 7-5.  Theo Wastase and Griffin Gold won second doubles 6-4, 6-3.  Jake Tobias and Steven Tenzer lost third doubles after a long, hard-fought match 7-5, 3-6, 9-11.  Brian Dichosa and Max Perel lost fourth doubles 6-4, 3-6, 8-10.

The win sets North off in the right direction as they look to follow up last year's undefeated season with another one.  The Rams head coach Alan Schwartz shares his players’ enthusiasm and is confident in their lineup this year.  For him and his team, the ultimate goal this season is to defend their title, though he acknowledges they have some tough teams to beat along the way.

“We certainly would like to win the league crown again, we’d like to defend our championship,” said Schwartz.  “Every season is new.  We have new players and every other team has new players, so  I think it’s going to be, once again, a race with Suffern and South.”

Schwartz is confident in his team’s ability to do this, thanks to their all around solid lineup.

“We have a nice, balanced lineup,” said Schwartz.  “It’s not that our singles players are normally better than our doubles teams.  We rely on both of them.  I don’t think that you can just say our singles are much better than our doubles.  We try to have both of equal strength.”

As defending league champs, they are the team to beat this year.  Their biggest challenger this season is looking to beat an old rival, Suffern.

“They [Suffern] had a very young team last year and anytime you’re returning almost your full team, it’s going to be tough,” said Schwartz.  “We had some very good matches with them last year, so, it’s always very competitive.”

Though they still have a while to go before they start facing teams within their league, Schwartz and his team are looking forward to facing sister school Clarkstown South and Suffern.

“We always look forward to South,” said Schwartz.  “South is always a big rival with us, so we look forward to that match and, of course, Suffern, but that’s not for a while.”

As Schwartz pointed out, every year is a new year.  With that comes changes.  For the Rams, their number one doubles player, Josh Raines, graduated last year.  Though it will be tough to replace him, other doubles players are stepping up and are expected to be quite strong this year.  As far as the rest of the season goes, the doubles players will be working with a rule change this year.

“The only thing that’s really changed is we’re not playing with the Coleman tiebreaker anymore in doubles, so we’re going back to the regular tiebreaker, which is good,” said Schwartz.  “I think that’s a positive thing.  Besides for that, everything is really staying the same.”

Returning to the team this year is Grant Germano, who will be helping to lead his team in the quest for another championship. Coming off his own undefeated season, he represents some of the top talent in the league and has moved up to play first singles this year from second last year.

“I had an undefeated season last year, so you can’t obviously do better than the undefeated season, but I’m going to get as close to, if not match it, this year,” said Germano.  He added, “Some teams have much better first singles players than second singles.  I’m looking forward to it.  It’s going to be a good senior season.”

To step up to the challenge, Germano has been training hard in the off-season to improve his conditioning, which he believes has become his greatest strength.

“[I have] more conditioning overall,” said Germano.  “You can only improve in the game so much, but it’s your endurance on the court that you’ve got to pay attention to.”

Coming off such an excellent season last year, Germano is confident that his team can repeat their success.

“I think we’re perfectly capable of doing it again, and everyone on the team knows that also, so we’re going for the best.”

The other players to watch this year are Jared Kash and Matt Danziger, who are playing first doubles for North.  The two seniors went undefeated last year and are excited to help lead their team to another championship.

“The past couple seasons obviously, we’ve been undefeated, we’ve been county champions, and I know personally, me and my partner, Matt Danziger, we went to Sections last year, so hopefully we can continue doing well,” said Kash.  “I’m expecting to go undefeated again, I’m expecting to win county champions again, especially as a senior.  Then hopefully me and Matt will be able to improve upon how we did last year, which will be tough, but it would be great to end on a good note.”

According to Kash, his strength is his net game, which is what he’s been focusing on over the off-season.  This was already a major strength of his last season, however with that he has also been able to significantly improve his ground strokes.

 “I think that I gained a lot of consistency during the off-season and I think that how I’m playing right now is the best that I’ve been playing in a while,” said Kash.  “I’m happy with it and hopefully it will stay with me for the continuation of the season.”

Danziger has been working hard as well in the off-season, playing tennis and working out to improve his game.

“I’ve been going to the gym a lot and playing a lot of tennis,” said Danziger.  “My serve has gotten better, so hopefully it will show throughout the season.”

For Kash and Danziger, it is their tenacity that is their greatest strength as a team.  They are looking forward to showing that tenacity when they play Suffern this year, which is a personal rivalry for them and a challenge that they are looking forward to facing.

“We always like playing Suffern, because we want to crush Suffern,” said Kash.  “Suffern has probably been our toughest competition, but we’ve been successful against them and I’m expecting to be successful against them this year.  I just love the controversy.  Last year, me and the coach at Suffern did not get along, so I guess it will be interesting to see what happens this year.”

Danziger agreed with Kash, saying, “We want to play Suffern this year, because we don’t like them.  They don’t like us and we don’t like them, that’s just the way it goes, so bring it on.”

Spurred on by these top-level players with an excellent and experienced head coach at the helm, the defending champs are the team to beat this year.  They will make it tough for any team to make them give up a match this season.

North plays next at home against Nanuet on Wednesday, Mar. 30, at 4 p.m. in a non-league match.

Roster:

Sophomores:

Neil Ramaswamy

Steven Tenzer

Colby Kash

Juniors:

Jeremy Chaitin

Brian Dichoza

Apurva Parikh

Max Perel

Spencer Pilavin

Jake Tobias

Seniors:

Matt Danziger

Grant Germano

Griffin Gold

Jared Kash

Theo Wastase