Sewickley Academy has been one of the more consistent tennis teams in the WPIAL over the past decade.
Since 2008, the Panthers have not gone more than two years without winning a WPIAL Class 2A team title and had been in the finals every season from 2008-15.
This season, however, Sewickley Academy was a bit of a question mark after graduating four of its top five top players. Instead of folding their tent, though, the Panthers are once again unbeaten against schools in their classification and are making serious strides toward winning their first championship since 2014.
For the first time, Sewickley Academy has three freshmen — Evelyn Safar, Simran Vedi and Christine Walton — as its three singles players. Having that much youth and inexperience at the top of the lineup has made things a bit more challenging from a coaching standpoint.
“You have to show them what it means to be a part of a team and that this is not an individual sport. They have to buy into being accountable to the other kids on the team,” Sewickley Academy coach Whitney Snyder said. “They got that speech Day 1 and, once they realized that they weren’t just getting a private lesson on Court No. 7 somewhere, they realized that this can be a very positive situation.”
Snyder has coached several WPIAL champions in singles and doubles and has won four WPIAL and one PIAA team titles with the girls. But though some might be frustrated at having so many young players, Snyder is having the time of his life.
“You’re taking a piece of clay that you’ve got and you’re having a chance to mold it as opposed to managing,” Snyder said. “I would rather teach than manage.”
Pine-Richland
A year ago, Pine-Richland qualified for the WPIAL Class 3A team playoffs and made it all the way through to the semifinals before losing to Peters Township.
This year, though, the team will have to work a bit harder to get back to the postseason.
“I don’t know whether we can be as good as last year,” Pine-Richland coach Janet Chappell said. “That was a good team because we didn’t have any really strong players, but everybody on the team was very solid.”
This year Pine-Richland picked up a transfer from Texas in junior Melissa Vizcardo, who immediately took over the No. 1 singles spot. Vizcardo is the No. 7-ranked player in the state in her class.
“She’s a nice player and she’s played in all our section matches, but we haven’t played the strongest players yet,” Chappell said. “Her moving in set the lineup. I was pretty sure we’d end up second in the section behind North Allegheny, but with her it makes a big difference.”
Norwin
A year ago, when Maria Santilli became the first Norwin tennis player to win a WPIAL and PIAA Class 3A tennis singles titles, she joined Plum alumna Ronit Yurovsky and Kellie Schmitt of Bethel Park in two very unique distinctions.
Not only were they all the first to win WPIAL Class 3A titles for their respective programs, they were also the only ones to do so without their schools qualifying for the WPIAL team tournament in the same year since the PIAA split into two classifications in 1998.
This year, however, the Knights are looking to change that.
“It helps to know that you have a pretty good shot at winning one point in every match you play, but the team aspect of it is to have some depth,” Norwin coach Ryan Hornick said. “To do that is definitely a reflection of us becoming a better all-around team, too.”
Norwin took its first steps toward that goal last week when it defeated perennial team tournament participant Hempfield for the first time in 18 years. The Knights came into the week with one section loss to Latrobe.
“We want to keep doing our business and winning our matches. We want another crack at Latrobe, but that’s not how the schedule works,” Hornick said. “We’ll need to get help from somebody else to win the section title, but we think the playoffs are a realistic goal.”
First Published: September 15, 2017, 11:00 a.m.