Lower Merion proves dominance over Wissahickon

LOWER GWYNEDD >> Mark Daniels has been working a two-year plan to get his Wissahickon boys tennis team into the PIAA playoff. One of the keys to his plan is scheduling top-notch talent for his team to play. It doesn’t get much tougher than what was on the Trojans plate Wednesday — a matchup with the defending state champion Lower Merion.

“It wasn’t about a win or loss because we knew it was going to be tough to beat these guys,” Daniels said. “It was about playing tough and having heart out there and not going away quick.”

Ben Wolfe was the only Wissahickon singles player to capture a victory on the afternoon as his opponent Thibault Vernier had to default after the first set that was won by Wolfe 6-1. Wissahickon  secured a doubles victory as the No. 4  team of Thomas O’Farrell and  Anthony Lee defeated Aseda Adebamgbe and Harrison Axelrod, but the defending state champs were too much as they defeated the Trojans 5-2.

“Ben Wolfe, even though his guy got hurt, he was playing pretty well,” Daniels said. “I think he would have beaten him regardless, he’s been training pretty hard.”

“Fourth doubles had a nice win because they were down 3-5 in the first set and came back in the first set. That’s what we wanted to do, show fight like that.”

The doubles play was something Lower Merion coach Dave O’Connell was looking at entering the match. O’Connell felt there was some improvement that needed to be made after the team’s loss to Conestoga.

Top doubles pairing Omosessan Adebamgbe and Jared Robinson had a solid showing, winning their match 6-2, 6-2 over the pair of David Weiss and Sam Langman.

“We lost a really tough one to Conestoga by losing all the doubles,” O’Connell said. “What I was really focused on was some of our doubles. I saw some improvement especially in the first and second doubles.”

Wissahickon freshman Andrew Tran gave Lower Merion junior Matt Chen a good match before conceding 1-6, 1-6.

“That score was kind of deceiving because that was a long match,” Daniels said. “A lot of the points were long rallies. It wasn’t like a blowout.”

Both teams take some good away from Wednesday’s highly-contested match. For the victors, Lower Merion, it showed the ability to respond and continue to know what it’s like to have every team gunning for the defending champs.

For Wissahickon, it knows there is still work to be done before playoff time and it looks as if there is only one team in the way of it winning the Suburban One American Conference.