As the sun finally broke through on a cold and cloudy morning, junior Eshaan Khera and his opponent were one of the last singles matchups for the third round of counties. After winning their own third round matches, Khera’s teammates gathered around to support him. Khera’s opponent, a sixth seed from Union Catholic, had given him quite the competition in the set’s final moments. But Khera, giving up three scores, had taken the sixth win with ease to close out the set, winning 2-0, and advancing to the fourth round.
The Union County Tournament for boys high school tennis works differently from most other sports. There are individual winners and a team winner. Each team of either singles or doubles can win up to 20 points if they win their entire flight. Each team can score up to 100 points from the winners of the singles and the doubles flights.
For the Blue Devils, Khera was seeded third for the first singles flight, senior Deven Patel was seeded second for the second singles flight and senior Evan Sewald was seeded first for the third singles flight. For doubles, senior captains Cole Hornbeck and Colin Cimei were seeded first for first doubles and freshman Chris Winters and sophomore Evan Kahn were seeded first for second doubles.
In the first matchup of the day, all Blue Devils advanced to the next round, each squad winning their matches, 2-0. Four out of five squads won all of their matchups, not giving up any points.
After an hour-long break, the Blue Devils played their second matchups of the day. For singles, Khera, Patel and Sewald advanced to the semifinal. Patel and Sewald won their matches, 2-0, whereas Khera won 2-1 in a thrilling 10-5 third match. For doubles, Hornbeck and Cimei, and Winters and Kahn advanced to the finals, winning their matchups 2-0 as well.
Overall, it was a tremendous performance for the first day of counties, especially with new head coach Matt Varhley coaching the boys. “I’m extremely proud of our team because we have five finalists. I think that’s really good, our top player is out,” Patel said. “Also, this is our first counties with our new coach, so I think with all those circumstances we are doing really well.”
In the end, the goal for tomorrow is “a Union County championship title for the boys,” according to Varhley.
Tomorrow, Westfield will attempt to achieve this goal at 4 p.m. at Tamaques Park.
