Nassau high school tennis is riding high
Josh Levine of Cold Spring Harbor returns the volley to Andrew Yaraghi of Friends Academy at the state boys tennis final. (June 2, 2012) Credit: Kevin P. Coughlin
Looking for the center of high school tennis in New York? Just drop your pin over Nassau County.
Two Nassau players competed for the boys state title Saturday as Josh Levine of Cold Spring Harbor beat Andrew Yaraghi of Friends Academy.
Back in November, two Nassau players met for the girls singles title when Syosset's Hannah Camhi defeated Garden City's Morgan Hermann.
On the final day of the boys tournament, which included the main draw medal rounds and the consolation finals, three doubles pairs and three singles players from Nassau were still competing, and finished with five medals to lead the county to its first team title in three years. Westchester's Section I had the next-most participants remaining, with two doubles pairs and a singles player.
"Our team was very powerful this year," Nassau boys tennis coordinator Barry Kubit said. "We had terrific singles and doubles teams and I'm not surprised with the way we finished."
In singles, Nassau players earned three of the four medals by reaching the semifinals as Vihar Shah of Herricks joined Levine and Yaraghi in the final four. Yaraghi defeated Shah, 6-3, 6-4, to reach the final, winning 17 points in a row in the first set after Shah had broken the first service game.
In doubles, two Nassau teams earned top-four medals, with Matt Barry and Ethan Bogard of Long Beach finishing third and Austin Davidow and Alex Sacher of North Shore finishing fourth.
The Long Beach pair entered the tournament as the top seed in the state, but lost in the semis to the eventual champions from Pelham in a super tiebreak. Davidow and Sacher beat the Westhampton duo of J.D. Sipala and Cooper Lacetera in the fourth-place match, and Syosset's Ian Baranowski and Kevin Katz were the runners-up in the doubles consolation bracket.
"The competition was very deep at the state level this year, particularly at doubles," Kubit said. "We have no shame in our doubles teams, they either got beat by a team that had a better day or was just better."
