Upper Dublin’s Szanya and Katz win SOL American doubles title

From wire to wire this season, the two best teams in the Suburban One League American Conference were Wissahickon and Upper Dublin.

Wissahickon won the conference outright, finishing undefeated with a 5-2 win over the Cardinals.

And when the Trojans’ Ben Wolfe defeated Upper Dublin’s Bryan Szayna in the semifinals of the conference’s singles championship, he insured Wissahickon would win the singles title as well. Wolfe lost to his Trojan teammate Andrew Tran in the finals.

Saturday afternoon, Szayna and the Cardinals exacted some revenge, as the team of Szayna and sophomore Danny Katz defeated the pairing of Wolfe and Nimay Godbole 7-6,4-6,6-4 to claim the SOL American doubles title.

“Obviously it’s a big win because Ben beat me in singles so I wanted revenge there just personally,” Szayna said. “It was big for us as a team because we lost as a team to them 5-2 so I think this match meant a lot.”

The match was not only epic but also very well played. The difference being just a handful of unforced errors made by the Trojan duo. Neither team would break serve until the 12th game of the match.

“It was excellent doubles,” Wissahickon coach Mark Daniels said. “In the first set, first 11 games everybody held serve. The difference in that set was we just had a few unforced errors.”

While the match was between two players on each team the dynamic between Wolfe facing Szayna was palpable. The two traded crushing shots both with power and precision. Over the past three years, Wolfe and Szayna have created a very competitive rivalry and saved a classic for their final conference showdown.

“That happens every time in doubles,” Szayna said of taking some shots at Wolfe and vice a versa instead of hitting the smarter shot. “When you’re friends but like enemies at the same time and you’re on rival team you’re always gunning for each other a little bit.”

While the thriller of a championship match was being played on one court, another Trojan pairing of David Weiss and Sam Langman also clinched a spot in the District 1-AAA tournament by winning the third place match against Upper Merion.

“It would have been nicer for (Wolfe and Godbole) to come away with first,” Daniels said of his overall impressions of his teams’ weekend. “All I want them to do is play well. If they would have lost and played terrible then you go home with a bad feeling, but they played well, Upper Dublin just played a little bit better. I’m proud of (Weiss and Langman) too this is the first time they got to districts and they’re only juniors so they’re all excited.”

With the individual and doubles champions crowned both the Cardinals and Trojans look to get their respective teams far in the district team tournament, which begins Monday. Wissahickon, seeded sixth, hosts No. 11 Downingtown East while No. 15 Upper Dubin vists second-seeded Radnor.