To end to their season, the Penn-Trafford boy’s tennis team got swept by 16th-seed North Hills in a play-in spot for the WPIAL team championship. The match took place at Gateway High School on April 29. P-T had a section record of 3-3 and finished fourth place in their division, qualifying them for the WPIAL team championships. 

     Usually, the draw starts in the round of 16, but this year three different teams – North Hills, Butler and Moon – all ended with a 2-4 record in their section making the need for a play-in. P-T was awarded the 15th seed and faced off for a match-up against North Hills.

     P-T went into the match missing their No. 1 singles player, Nick Turowski, who was participating in a golf tournament, allowing senior Hunter Muir to step up and play the one singles spot. The rest of the line-up included senior Brian Broadwater and sophomore Lucas Fox at two and three singles respectively and the doubles pairings of sophomore Evan Sadler and senior Santino Premozic. The team was rounded out by the second doubles team of freshmen Nino Sunseri and Carter Blasi.

     After getting a pep-talk from head coach Megan Satira the team walked out and started their matches. Due to Gateway only having four courts, Sunseri and Blasi had to wait for the first available court, but it allowed them to watch and cheer on their teammates as they played. 

     Fox, who was playing his first-ever singles match, struggled against North Hills sophomore Joey Saad who rushed to net a lot, finishing a majority of points with either a volley or overhead. Fox tried his best against the net play but struggled with the speed-up pace of play that occurred with Saad at the net. Fox, with the encouragement of Satira who coached him during a change-over, was able to lob the ball over his opponent’s head allowing for a number of winners that left Saad running backward, but it wasn’t enough to win the match and he fell 6-0, 6-0.

     Two courts away Fox’s teammate Muir was also making his best attempt with a net player and was using his height to his fullest advantage on the serves, but the score was not reflecting his attempts. He quickly dropped the first set 6-0 and the second set followed the same scoreline.

     Now being down 2-0 P-T’s only hope of winning was sweeping the last three remaining matches on the court. Both of P-T’s doubles were having a hard job of dealing with the North Hills doubles strategy of poaching everything and forcing the P-T net player to become active in the point. Sadler and Premozic were able to take two games in the first set by allowing North Hills doubles pairing of Lukas Clement and Luke Mayer to commit errors, but they ended up falling to the North Hill’s pair 6-2, 6-0.

     Even though the match had already been decided overall, the second doubles and second singles finished up their matches. P-T’s second doubles fell to North Hill’s Mason Langhurst and Conor Greer 6-0, 6-0 after being overpowered. Langhurst and Greer, like the rest of their teammates, played the net game with a lot of poaching which Sunseri and Blasi struggled to adjust to.

     P-T’s last hope of getting a win came from Broadwater who was able to take the first set 6-4 in a set that took over 45 minutes. Broadwater was up late in the second set but some good shots from North Hills junior Othmane Eljoufri allowed him to take the second set and forced a third set. Everyone stopped to watch the third set 10-point tiebreak. The breaker stayed close in score with the two of them staying within two points of each other but then towards the end, Eljoufri had some great shots and took the lead and took the match with a 10-6 score in the tiebreak.

     North Hills took the match with a win of 5-0. They faced the WPIAL Team’s reigning champions Gateway the next day and Gateway swept them 5-0.