Depth gets it done for NCSSM victory

By CHAD SALESKA : The Herald-Sun
csaleska@heraldsun.com
May 25, 2008

BURLINGTON -- The state finals of the 1-A tennis dual team tournament went just about according to script for NCSSM.

The Unicorns lost the top two singles matches, won the bottom four and picked up a doubles win to capture their first state tennis title with a 5-2 decision over Hendersonville on Saturday afternoon at Burlington Tennis Center.

"That's where we've won our matches all year," said Science & Math coach Richard McClenny, whose team ends its season with a record of 19-2. "The strength of our team isn't at one and two, it's my two through seven or eight that are interchangeable. We're a very deep team."

The NCSSM doubles tandem of Joe Gitt and Keith Funkhouser wrapped up the state title for the Unicorns with a 10-2 decision over Hendersonville's Evan Kirkland and Scott Davis at No. 3 doubles.

The celebration seemed subdued, but perhaps it was the expectation coming to fruition.

"This is the exact matchup we thought it was going to be," McClenny said. "We built this team for this particular match. When we set it up I knew at the beginning of the season it was going to be this matchup in the finals."

It mostly went according to plan.

As expected, Hendersonville's Tyler Grove -- the reigning state 1-A champion -- didn't take long in dispatching NCSSM's Andrew Guo 6-2, 6-0 to give the Bearcats the first points of the day.

Cole Caplan at No. 6 was the first of the Unicorns to score, finishing off Brent Coburn 6-1, 6-0.

"I think he was just having an off day," Caplan said. "I was hitting my shots in and being pretty consistent, I think. Some days you just go out there and feel confident -- this was one of those days."

Caplan's win was followed closely by Funkhouser who finished off his 6-0, 6-0 thrashing of Tamir Shemesh to give NCSSM a 2-1 match lead.

Also as expected, Hendersonville's Robert Beal was too much for Gitt, and Beal's 6-0, 6-3 win evened the match score at 2-2.

Just minutes later, NCSSM's Albert Teng closed out his 6-2, 6-4 victory over Davis at No. 4 to push the Unicorns back in front.

That win set up the most dramatic match of the day, the No. 3 singles contest between the Unicorns' Anumpam Dalvi and Hendersonville's Kirkland.

"The match at [No. 3 singles] that Anumpan [Dalvi] won was by far the key," McClenny said. "We knew it would be -- we knew it would be all year."

After losing the first set in a tiebreaker, Dalvi rallied to win the second set 6-2 and controlled the pace of the tiebreaker enough to earn a 10-4 win.

"He started off pretty slow and came back to gain a little momentum towards the end of the first set," McClenny said of Dalvi. "He played really well in the second set, and I think conditioning may have played a little part in the third set. I think there may have been a loss of conditioning a little bit by his opponent."

That gave NCSSM a 4-2 heading into the doubles, and set up Caplan and Funkhouser's title-clinching win.

"We were playing doubles pretty well and probably would have won two out of the three double," McClenny said. "We got the matchups we were anticipating all year, so we were ready."

The Unicorns were ready for the culmination of their season -- a season they knew would be special from the start.

"I knew at the very beginning when I saw these guys hitting and playing," McClenny said. "I knew we had a shot, but I knew this would be the match we would have to win."

Hendersonville finished its season with a record of 15-5.

NCSSM's made the state finals in 1993, but was beaten 6-0 by Union Pines.

NCSSM 5, Hendersonville 2

Singles -- Tyler Grove (H) d. Andrew Guo 6-2, 6-0; Robert Beal (H), d. Joe Gitt 6-0, 6-3; Anupam Dalvi (NCSSM) d. Evan Kirkland 6-7(5), 6-2, (10-4); Albert Teng (NCSSM) d. Scott Davis 6-2, 6-4; Cole Caplan (NCSSM) def. Brent Coburn 6-1, 6-0; Keith Funkhouser (NCSSM) def. Tamir Shemesh 6-0, 6-0.

Doubles -- Joe Gitt/Keith Funkhouser (NCSSM) d. Evan Kirkland/Scott Davis 10-2.


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