No. 8 Bergen Tech fought off a determined assault by No. 6 West Windsor-Plainsboro South to claim its first girls tennis state championship in school history with a 3-2 win in the Group 4 final at Mercer county Park on Thursday.
The match came down to the final moments as the top seeded Lady Knights led 2-1 with both the third singles and first doubles in tiebreakers.
Before 2-seed West Windsor could win the first doubles match, Bergen Tech’s Nora Cullen clinched the title for her team when she outlasted South’s Archisha Ghosh in a third set tiebreaker, 11-9.
It capped a remarkable comeback for Cullen, who lost the first set 6-3 before coming back to win the second set 6-4. And while the tiebreaker was a nailbiter, with neither player leading by more than two points at any time, Cullen never trailed, winning the final two points to break a 9-9 tie.
“I knew we had just one more for the win,” Cullen said after the victory. “And it was definitely pressure. I just had to focus on getting each point at a time.
“Technically, I just tried to put as much spin on the ball and try not to focus on the mistakes and just keeping the rally going,” Cullen added of her second set comeback. “Because she’s (Ghosh) an amazing player. I tried to turn the nerves into energy and use it towards my game.
“I’m so proud of myself and my team for everything.”
According to coach Stephen Lastra, the road to Tech’s first state title began in the ashes of last year’s 4-1 finals loss to East Brunswick. With the entire 2024 team returning this fall, plus the addition of freshman Valerie Sinitsyn at first singles, the Lady Knights had a powerful lineup.
But two early losses, to No. 2 Holy Angels and No. 16 Ridgewood, set the Bergen Tech record at 5-2. After the Ridgewood loss on Sept. 18, however, the Lady Knights did not lose again, going 17-2, defeating Ridgewood in the sectional semifinal, and claiming the state title.
“Last year we were here and faced a great, great East Brunswick team,” Lastra said. “And we said that we thought we could be back here next year. Valerie came in and became our one and just lengthened our lineup.
“We lost to Ridgewood 3-2 and afterwards I told the girls I was confident that we could win this whole Group 4. And we started to play great tennis at that point.”
Tech fairly blew through the rest of its schedule, including the 5-0 win over Ridgewood and a 5-0 win over Westfield in the group semifinal, until it ran into the fierce effort by WW-P South in the final.
“This was a great match,” Lastra said of the battle with the Pirates. “My hat’s off to them. We had some real close matches there. But I’m really, really proud of these girls. The seven of them, they’re the Magnificent Seven. They come to practice every day, it’s fun, they all get along with each other. So it’s great to be a part of it.”
Bergen Tech would come out of the gate to take a 2-0 lead in the team score as the Lady Knights won second doubles and first singles to put the pressure on West Windsor early.
First off the court were the second doubles team of Chloe Chung and Emma Yoon, who defeated WW-P South’s Sitara Shah and Caroline Ren 6-3, 6-2.
Chung and Yoon led 4-3 in the first set before picking up a late break to win 6-3. From there, Chung and Yoon were in control, winning the second set handily.
“I think there was just a bunch of reading,” Chung said of she and Yoon’s doubles win. “It was reading each other, reading our opponents and then reading the weather. There was a lot of wind going on. You can say, ‘It’s just the wind.’ So it was easier to shake off a point.
“We’ve been doubles partners for two years now, so we kind of know each other. And it’s our last match, so we wanted to make it special.”
“It’s very special, especially because we’re seniors,” Yoon said after the win. “I’m really happy that we pulled it through.”
Sinitsyn made it 2-0 with a win at first singles when she defeated WW-P South’s Alice Nadtochiy 6-0, 6-4
There has been a lot of buzz about freshman Sinitsyn, who reached the quarterfinals of the state singles tournament, and in the first set she showed why.
In spite of the score, Nadtochiy was playing remarkably good tennis throughout the first set. But no matter how well she hit the ball, Sinitsyn returned winner after winner.
The second set was a different story however, and Sinitsyn would have to break in the final game of the set to win.
“I definitely think in the second set (Nadtochiy) started playing very well. And I wasn’t really ready for that, because I won the first set with such ease.
“She really ran me back and forth. She hit pretty hard. I was trying to keep it deep but whenever she went into the court, she definitely put it away. So that gave me a little bit of trouble.
“If you look in my first match (a 6-3, 6-2 win over Westfield’s Lauren Roszak in the semifinals) the wind really threw me off. Here, I felt so much better, so I just went for it. In the beginning, everything was working great. I think I should have went to net a little more, because my net game was pretty good the second set. But definitely, my serve (was on).”
Bergen Tech might have looked like it was in the driver’s seat with a 2-0 lead, but the Pirates were having none of it. WW-P South’s second singles, Vanessa Kudelya, took the first set in her match with Olivia Lai 6-4, while Ghosh won her first set over Cullen and South’s first doubles team of Caris Co and Sana Daway won its first set 6-4 over Tech’s Olivia Domski and Katie Chung.
For a long while, the fate of the match hung in the balance as the players waged war in the three remaining matchups. But things would break quickly at the end, first when Kudelya won the second set to defeat Lai 6-4, 6-3.
Kudelya and Lai exchanged breaks throughout the first set, but Kudelya broke late to win the first set and then used another late break to wrap up the match in straight sets.
“It took a lot of mental stability,” Kudelya said of her match, which featured a continuous succession of long, contested points. “I was running for every point. I was trying to get any ball I could. I just wanted to fight, bring anything back. Because I knew that she was a really good player and that the only way to beat her was to try my hardest.”
Kudelya’s win left West Windsor on the cusp of victory, but moments later, Cullen ended any hope the Pirates had of sweeping the remaining matches when she locked down the third set tie breaker at third singles for an insurmountable 3-1 lead.
WW-P South’s first doubles team of Co and Daway would then win a prolonged second set tiebreak to defeat Domski and Chung 6-4, 7-6 (12-10), setting the final score at 3-2.
“It was so tough,” Co said of the battle she and Daway waged. “But we’ve played together for so long now, I knew that we would win. Even when we were down in the second set tiebreaker (at 3-0), in our minds we told ourselves that we would win. We kept encouraging each other.”
“Our biggest thing for every match is just keeping a positive mindset,” Daway added. “Every single ball before the point started we would say, ‘Go Sana, go Caris.’ Just cheering for each other. Even when the other one messes up, we just kept a positive mindset and were reinforcing that.”
Unlike Bergen Tech, West Windsor-Plainsboro South had previously won a state title, back in 2014. But the loss to the Lady Knights on Thursday marked the second time in three years that the Pirates have reached the state final only to be turned back.
It was a frustrating loss, given that the match was decided by two tiebreaker points, but WW-P South coach Patrick Kelly was certainly happy with the way his team played.
“This is as close as it gets, absolutely,” he said. “They played fantastic, I think we played fantastic. We had a tiebreak that went 12-10 and a third set tiebreak that went 11-9.
“Our second singles played out of her mind, probably the best match I’ve seen her play. My first singles, after going down 0-6 in the first set, battles to 4-6 against a fantastic player. For second doubles, the score doesn’t reflect how close it was. They’re a fantastic group.
“We’re this close in two out of three years. We can try and build on this. But we feel great. It was a great year so far.”