Lower Merion defeats Wissahickon for 2nd straight District 1-AAA title

WHITEMARSH >> For the Wissahickon boys tennis team, Thursday afternoon’s District-1-AAA team final proved one thing — the only team in the district definitively better is Lower Merion.

The defending PIAA state champions defeated the Trojans 3-0 as the Aces lifted the district title for the second consecutive year.

“We gave a shot,” Wissahickon coach Mark Daniels said. “I feel proud of them. Even (Lower Merion) coach Dave (O’Connell) said they had earned every point. There wasn’t really a walk-over anywhere on the five courts so that’s a good thing.”

As for what is true between the two teams is also true for the teams’ first singles pairing. Perhaps the only player in District 1 that can beat Wissahickon’s Andrew Tran is Lower Merion’s Matt Chen.

Before Thursday’s match, the most recent matchup between Chen and Tran took place in the District-1 AAA singles tournament where Chen defeated Tran 2-6,6-1,7-5 in the semifinals.

“The first singles, if you watch that match, talk about deceptive scores,” said O’Connell of Tran and Chen’s match. “They both belt the ball and they’re both exactly what I like about tennis — they play by the code, they give each other the benefit of the doubt on close calls and they really played well.”

In Thursday’s match, Chen completed the season sweep of Tran in the two’s third meeting of the season, 6-2,6-1.

“Matt was playing extremely well,” said Daniels said of the match between Chen and Tran. “Andrew has played a little cleaner. The last time they played, they played indoors at the district tournament and it went three sets. Andrew played a little better when they played last time but Matt was just playing incredible.”

Lower Merion scored another singles win as Sean Atterbery defeated Nimay Godbole 4-6,2-6. Although Atterbery earned the victory for the Aces, Godbole battled him tough as he improved from the 6-2, 6-0 loss Atterbery handed to him in the regular season.

“He had a really good week,” Daniels said of Godbole. “He helped get us the winning point against Conestoga… We have two extremely good 1-2 players, (Lower Merion) has three players of that level so he was not playing a normal No.3 player.”

Rounding out the singles Ben Wolfe of the Trojans faced off with Thibault Vernier of the Aces. The two played lengthy first set won by Vernier 7-6 (7-4) but the match was not played to completion, as the result of the match had already been determined with both players playing doubles Friday.

One of the two doubles teams played its match to completion as the Aces Jared Robinson and Simon Sheintock defeated the Wissahickon pairing of Zane Peng and Greg Walsh 6-2,6-4.

Both Lower Merion and Wissahickon will enter the PIAA AAA playoffs with the aces looking to double down on its repeat when the state tournament begins

Tuesday. Lower Merion faces District 3 No. 3 seed Dallastown while Wissahicokon takes on District 11 champion Parkland.