Boys’ Tennis Loses in Seventh Round of Tournament: Team Struggles After Losing Strong Players in 2015

Exeter’s boys’ varsity tennis team lost as the seventh seed team against Taft in the first round of the class A division of the NEPSAC Boys’ Tennis Championship this past Saturday.

Last year, Big Red was the second seed team, beat Deerfield in the first round, Kingswood Oxford in the semi-finals and finished off the tournament by defeating the one seeded Taft team to win the title of New England Boys’ Prep School Champions.

For several reasons, the team was less strong this year. Exeter’s former number one player, Brian Niguidula from the class of 2017, transferred to Andover last fall and their number two player, Moises Escobar ’15, graduated last spring. “After losing last year’s [top two players], we knew we’d need to work hard and step up our game if we wanted to win another New England championships,” senior Jack Hirsch said.

However, senior Joon Kim acknowledged some of the younger students such as lower Ryan Nguy who stepped up to play the number one player on the team this season. He believes the strong lowerclassmen players will carry the team through the following years. “We remained a very deep team, but without the firepower we had last season, it proved to be too big of an obstacle to overcome,” Kim said.

“We didn’t get off to a very good start for the season, and that hurt our seeding for the New England tournament, meaning we had to play a tough team early.”

Another obstacle for the team was less court time toward the beginning of the season. New courts were built behind the softball fields, but lower Pedro Sanson still expressed disappointment with their placement. He believed less people came to support their games throughout the season because of the longer walk.

In addition to having less outdoor courts, Sanson explained why he thinks it is important to have indoor courts. “Many practices were done in the hockey rink because of the rain and snow, which really isn’t ideal,” Sanson said. “If we had indoor courts our season would have been more successful with even more playing time.”

The team lost their first two matches against Groton School and Choate Rosemary School. In order to qualify for the tournament the team needed to win the following four matches against Roxbury Latin School, Northfield Mount Hermon School, Milton Academy and Deerfield Academy—which they did.

Prep Alex Mangiapane explained the importance of winning regular season matches for this tournament.

“We didn’t get off to a very good start for the season, and that hurt our seeding for the New England tournament, meaning we had to play a tough team early,” Mangiapane said.

Six members of the team, Kim, Sanson, Nguy, uppers Cameron Gruss and Sergio Escobar and senior captain Rex Tercek traveled to Choate early on Saturday morning.

After losing four of the matches, the game was called off because the tournament was played to result, not to conclusion. Accordingly, Kim, who had won his first set, and Nguy, who was coming back from giving up his first set, didn’t finish their matches.

Gruss commended Taft’s team for its sportsmanship. “We played them last year in the finals of the tournament and barely won 4-3 after being down 3-0,” he said. “I think everyone tried their best, and left it all on the court, unfortunately it just wasn’t enough.”

Tercek agreed that the opponent was a strong team. “I think the biggest challenge for our team at New Englands was simply the talent of the other teams,” he said. The boys knew that their draw would mean playing Taft, Andover and Groton, who all had winning seasons this year. “We knew we could win it we kept our focus and played a strong match, but at the same time, we also knew it was going to be difficult,” Tercek said.