State Champs: Hendricken boys tennis wins first title since 1993

By ALEX SPONSELLER
Posted 5/29/18

By ALEX SPONSELLER The Bishop Hendricken boys tennis team seemed to be unstoppable throughout most of the regular season. The Hawks were flying high at 15-0, getting wins against defending champ South Kingstown and powerhouse Barrington. However,

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State Champs: Hendricken boys tennis wins first title since 1993

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The Bishop Hendricken boys tennis team seemed to be unstoppable throughout most of the regular season.

The Hawks were flying high at 15-0, getting wins against defending champ South Kingstown and powerhouse Barrington. However, Barrington would put an end to Hendricken’s streak, topping the Hawks in the regular season finale and making them suddenly look vulnerable.

Saturday’s state championship was a much-anticipated rubber match between the two clubs, and the Hawks would rebound with a 4-2 win and bring home its first state title since 1993.

“It feels great, it was two teams that were evenly-matched. It could have gone either way and that’s cliché I suppose … but this is a really special group of kids that we have on this team,” said Hendricken coach Steve Crawford, who began coaching at the school in 1974. “A lot of seniors and a lot of kids with great character, toughness, talent, tenacity, and a tremendous sense of team. The best that I’ve ever had. All of that came together today and allowed us to escape with this. We just lost to them, but a loss can be a teaching moment. They were more resolved to get this done. They knew this was an opportunity. Who knows how many you have, they knew this was a special team. They knew that this was the moment it was going to happen.”

The Hawks boasted the state’s most experienced roster, which included 10 seniors. Crawford felt that it was simply his team’s time to hoist the state championship plaque and cement its place in Hendricken sports history.

“I think so, that would be true. There were juniors and seniors that won big matches today and have been in big matches. They dug down in some tough conditions, it was stinking hot out there for sure. They found a way,” said Crawford.

Hendricken’s top singles player Chad Doorley is among the state’s top performers but dropped each of his regular season matches against Barrington’s James Bogdanovic. Ken Lee also dropped both of his matches against Barrington’s Owen Voight earlier in the season. However, it would be Doorley and Lee winning on the state’s biggest stage on Saturday.

“Chad Doorley lost to (Bogdanovic) twice this year but we had an intuition that he was going to do something special. He got right into it early, the kids all noticed that court 1 was still going and he was still working as hard as he could and that kind of feeds down to all the other courts. It was a huge victory, biggest win of his life for sure,” said Crawford. “Ken lee lost twice and won in straight sets today … exceptional.”

The Hawks will enjoy this win and turn the page toward next season. Although Hendricken loses a large portion of its roster, Crawford has faith that the Hawks will be ready to defend their title.

“They learned a lot from kids that taught them a lot … how they conducted themselves at practice, how they always put the team first. We lose 10 seniors on this team, that’s an extraordinary number, I’ve never had half that number. We get our No. 3 and No. 4 player back and will have some young kids step up,” said Crawford. “We’ll see what happens.”

Doorley def. Bogdanovic 6-4, 6-3; Barrington’s Eric Zhang def. Aditya Kini 6-2, 6-4; Lee def. Voight 6-3, 7-6; Hendricken’s Henri Snyman def. Alex Caizzi 2-6, 6-2, 6-1; Hendricken’s Joe Weidinger-Jarod Zizza def. Conor McGartoll-Connor Kelly 7-5, 7-5; Barrington’s Kevin Zhu-Lucas Johnson def. Cory Morris-Ethan Graham 6-1, 7-6.

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