Penncrest Tennis Team Tries to Build on Strong Season Opener

MARPLE NEWTOWN—It's tough to follow up a season opener where you take down last year's big dawgs.

On Monday, tennis team faced Marple Newtown High School, a team that, by their own coach's admission, is not quite as experienced or storied as some other local schools' tennis teams—but that doesn't mean they didn't have any fight in them.

With head coach Marc Comfort absent due to personal reasons, Penncrest's go-to guy, Jack-of-all-Sports/assistant athletic director Tom Durant, filled in.

"Last week, we had some guys come up real big for us," said Durant as he observed three simultaneous singles games, calling out the occasional compliment or advice to one of his players. "Guys like Steve Hamilton, J.T. Groses, Danny Graham, they played  strong matches for us against a real tough team."

Although he doesn't normally specialize in tennis, Durant has a good feel for the tennis team.

"This is a neat group. A lot of different personalities, and it makes for different approaches to the game, thier individual styles. They all get along, too—it's great chemistry with these guys," he said.

Surprisingly, after many back-and-forth battles, Penncrest finished the day with an overall loss to the feisty Tigers, 5-2. Dennis Gliem won his singles match and the doubles team of Steve Hamilton and Mike Daly won their match.