FUTURE IS BRIGHT
DANVILLE — If someone had told Central Columbia coach Kevin Flynn in March that the Blue Jays would compete for a district title this season, he would have laughed it off, confused.
Flynn thought the team was too inexperienced and would be playing catch-up with some of the stronger teams in the PHAC and District 4. He also thought he would be trying to move around some players, like a puzzle, to see what worked best.
Instead, the Blue Jays demonstrated remarkable resilience this year, culminating with their sixth appearance in the district final in the last seven tournaments. Unfortunately, their run came to an end as they fell to the reigning champion, Lewisburg, 3-0.
"I probably would have chuckled and said, 'anything is possible.' To me, it was an unrealistic goal, at the time, not knowing the players yet or where the puzzle pieces were going to fit," Flynn said. "Now that we've made it here, I will probably have to eat my words and swallow my pride. Sometimes we underestimate ourselves a bit, and it's a humbling experience for anyone to admit when you look at something differently and go, OK, they may have had more than I expected. I'm glad they proved me wrong."
Inexperience still showed its ugly head on Thursday as the Jays tried to slay the Green Dragons.
Central's Nathan Lang and Tanner Frensch jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead, but quickly saw things get away, dropping 12 of the next 14 games to lose 6-4, 6-1. Henry Heintzelman was hurting the duo all afternoon with soft tappers in front of the net and line drives between the two that neither could catch up to.
Lang and Frensch weren't alone. Senior Sohan Patel, who was hitting the ball hard all afternoon, but uncontrollably, was stretched throughout the court with well-placed shots in a 6-2, 6-2 loss to Alexey Rosenberg. In the court directly to Patel's right, fellow senior Ben Kehres was partaking in some long games — some lasting as long as 20 hits apiece — but he was often on the wrong end with his shots going out or hitting the net to end long volleys in a 6-4, 6-4 defeat.
"I think there was some inexperience today against a team that has been here and won the tournament last year," Flynn said. "They had some great players making it tough on our guys. Give credit to Lewisburg for what they were able to do on all five of their courts. They made us play from behind, which we've done sometimes, but we've typically been able to get the start we needed to and stay ahead. Today, it just didn't go our way."
Had the match not been decided, Central's No. 2 doubles team, Junior Pauley and Joey Pecora, would have played a decisive third set. They recorded the Blue Jays' lone win by shortening the court a lot of the time and getting Lewisburg's Colby Jacob and Tyson Nicholls to move closer to the net with some softer stuff, keeping them off-balanced.
Flynn is also curious to see where things could have gone in No. 1 singles, as David Toscano was looking like he was beginning to get the hang of things against Will Cicchini, who was placing some great shots in the corner and getting liners just above the net all afternoon. The son of Bucknell football coach Dave Cecchini got the better of Toscano in the first set, 6-2, but with a lingering shoulder injury, Toscano had things even at 3-3 when a trainer was attending to Cicchini, and the match was called.
Despite coming up short of adding to their dynasty, having won five of the last six championships, the Blue Jays weren't hanging their heads. They were giddy to receive the silver medals and excitedly took several group photos before playing some games on the court after the dust had settled. It also gives the young team — which loses just Patel, Kehres, and Junior Pauley to graduation — a great deal of experience to help them get the district crown back.
"The hope for us is that we bring back a lot of these guys and hope we get to develop their talent and be competitive again," Flynn said. "We've been blessed to make it to this point six of the last seven years. I've learned to appreciate the joy in the sport. It's not always coming from winning. It can come from the bonding we have and the team did that this year — they came together, they're smiling and having a good time despite the result today."
Link to story: https://www.pressenterpriseonl...
