Cranes Write Championship Finish Again
October 21, 2017
By Butch Harmon
Special for Second Half
HOLLAND – This year’s MHSAA Division 3 Boys Tennis Finals featured a familiar storyline and an equally familiar ending.
For the third straight season, Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood came away with the Lower Peninsula Division 3 title – and for a third straight season the Cranes held off a familiar foe in longtime rival Detroit Country Day.
Led by outstanding singles players and clutch doubles play, top-ranked Cranbrook Kingswood totaled 36 points while Detroit Country Day placed second with 28. East Grand Rapids and Ada Forest Hills Eastern tied for third place with 20 points.
Cranbrook Kingswood did have a twist to this year’s winning plot. The Cranes were led by a new coach this season in Steve Herdoiza. Although in his first season with the boys, Herdoiza is no stranger to the tennis program as he has coached the Cranbrook Kingswood girls team the past four years.
“With this group of guys, I thought that winning a third state title was very attainable,” Herdoiza said. “I knew a lot of these guys. As a new coach it’s important that everyone buys into the system, and all these boys did. This is a team with a lot of depth and a lot of talent. When you put those two things together, and everyone is working hard, you can accomplish big things.”
Cranbrook Kingswood’s depth and talent proved key. Two years ago, the Cranes won the title by eight points over second-place Country Day, and last year the margin was just one point over the Yellowjackets. At the Regional leading up to this year’s Finals, Cranbrook Kingswood defeated Country Day, ranked second in LPD3, by two points.
Strong play in the singles flights proved a key for Cranbrook Kingswood. At No. 1 singles, senior Benji Jacobson came into the tournament as the top seed. A two-time individual Finals champion and last year’s winner at No. 1 singles, Jacobson claimed this year’s title with a 6-2, 6-4 win against Jack Dausman of Coopersville. Dausman was a familiar foe for Jacobson, as Jacobson defeated Dausman in last year’s semifinals.
After a slow start to the season, Jacobson came into the tournament on a roll the last few weeks.
“At the beginning of the year I struggled a little bit,” Jacobson said. “I changed my grip and it took a while to get used to it. A few weeks ago, it started to click and it made a big difference this year.”
Jacobson, who will continue his tennis career at Tulane University next season, capped his career at Cranbrook Kingswood as a three-time individual and three-time team Finals champion. While the individual titles are nice, the team title is by far more special for Jacobson.
“Winning the team title easily feels better,” Jacobson said. “For the past three months we’ve been on the court grinding and having fun off the court. These guys are like my brothers. We are more like a family, and winning three in a row is unbelievable.”
While Jacobson won his third individual singles title, his teammate, sophomore Lucas Bosch, claimed his first. Seeded first at No. 2 singles, Bosh defeated Ricky Warnicke, the second seed from Detroit Country Day, 6-4, 6-0.
“Words can’t describe this feeling,” Bosch said. “Being here last year helped me because I was not as nervous as last year. Winning the team title is great, especially for our seniors. This was their last matches in high school, and to send them out with a third title is amazing.”
Cranbrook Kingswood also came away with the championship at No. 3 singles. Justin Luo, the top seed, turned in an efficient performance in the finals with a 6-0, 6-0 win against second-seed Kody Harrington of Allegan.
At No. 4 singles, Detroit Country Day senior Eric Wang, the top seed, defeated a familiar foe in Cranbrook Kingswood’s Sohum Archarya. Wang held off Archarya 7-6 (7), 6-2 in a tight match.
“The first set was real close,” Wang said. “It went to a tie breaker and I won it 9-7, so it definitely was real close. It feels good to end my senior year with a win.”
In doubles play, Cranbrook Kingswood won at No. 2 as the top-seeded duo of Joseph Croskey and Nikhil Deenadayalu defeated Connor Smith and Kole Butterer of East Grand Rapids 6-4, 6-2.
Detroit Country Day claimed a pair of titles in double competition. At No. 3, Country Day’s team of Tom Nardicchio and Eric Liu held off Cranbrook Kingswood’s Eshaan Kawira and Jack Trees 7-5, 6-3.
At No. 4 doubles, the Country Day team of junior Nick Sicilia and senior Justin Lee defeated Cranbrook Kingswood’s Hayes Bradley and David Hermelin 7-6 (2), 6-4.
“To win the last match of your high school career is pretty awesome,” Lee said.
“It’s pretty special,” Sicilia said. “This is the third time we beat them this year. The first time it was 6-0, 6-3 and the second time it was 6-4, 6-1. This time the first set went to a tie breaker, so it was closer this time.”
One of the bigger surprises of the tournament came at No. 1 doubles, where Forest Hills Eastern’s Nick Hakken and Anish Premkumar, the three seed, defeated Cranbrook Kingswood top seeds Andrew Du and Jacob Yellen 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2.
“To finally win it is amazing,” Premkumar said. “It’s always been a goal of ours to win state.”
The win also helped Eastern finish in third place, the best finish the Hawks have ever posted at the Finals.
“We were just really focused,” Hakken said. “We had Country Day in the semifinals so we had to be real focused for that match also. To help the team to its best finish ever is really cool.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Cranbrook Kingswood celebrates its third straight LPD3 championship. (Middle) Anish Premkumar and Nick Hakken led Forest Hills Eastern to its highest Finals finish. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Black Hawks Soar Again in Division 1, while Kumar Repeats with Top-Flight Title
By
Scott DeCamp
Special for MHSAA.com
October 15, 2022
HOLLAND – While Bloomfield Hills boys tennis coach Greg Burks was being interviewed late Saturday afternoon at Hope College’s Etheridge Tennis Complex, the Black Hawks’ team canopy lifted in a gust of wind and toppled onto the court.
That was about the only thing that went wrong for Bloomfield Hills this weekend. The Black Hawks used their supreme depth to run away with the MHSAA Division 1 boys tennis championship, the program’s third in six years and fourth in eight seasons – and also their first since 2018.
Bloomfield Hills capped the chilly, two-day tournament by capturing titles in five of eight flights and finishing runner-up in two others. The top-ranked Black Hawks tallied 35 points to win going away.
Northville was runner-up with 25 points, followed by Troy with 24. Novi was fourth with 17 points.
Each of the top four teams was ranked in the top four of the Michigan High School Tennis Coaches Association poll.
“We had a lot of depth. We had a couple kids come in – a couple freshman, Jonah Chernett and Connor Shaya – and they kind of extended that lineup even further to where we were just very, very deep,” said Burks, who also guided the Black Hawks to Division 1 titles in 2015, 2017 and 2018.
“To be honest, everybody just worked very hard in the offseason. They knew that we were getting those couple of guys and we only graduated one from last year, so they just knew – these are the stakes, and we knew that Troy and Northville and Novi were going to be tough. Yeah, it was great.”
Bloomfield Hills settled for a Finals runner-up finish last season behind Troy. This time, championships at two of the four singles flights and three of the four doubles flights helped push the Black Hawks over the top.
Bloomfield Hills senior Daniel Stojanov repeated at No. 2 singles with a 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 victory over Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice’s Patrick Cretu. At No. 4 singles, the spunky Shaya defeated Troy’s Dhruv Gupta in the Finals match, 6-2, 6-3.
The doubles teams of Pierce Shaya-Merrick Chernett (No. 1), Michael Dillon-Ryan Rose (No. 2) and Kierth Lingam-Dominic Pascarella (No. 4) earned big points for Bloomfield Hills with flight championships.
Bloomfield Hills’ Aaron Rose was runner-up to Detroit Catholic Central’s Alec Maynard at No. 3 singles (6-2, 6-4). The Black Hawks’ Drew Davis and Toni Vasile finished second at No. 3 doubles, falling to Ann Arbor Huron’s Warren Gunnar and Hassan Hejazi in the final.
Northville junior Sachiv Kumar repeated at No. 1 singles winning a championship rematch against Rochester junior Clayton Anderson, 7-6, 4-6, 6-1. Kumar defeated Anderson in last year’s title match, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(5). Kumar finished 34-1 this season with his lone loss coming against Anderson during a dual meet.
It was a different Finals experience for Kumar this time around. Last year’s Division 1 Finals in Kalamazoo was moved indoors because of rain.
“The conditions – just way too cold outside, and (too) windy to play tennis, but somehow I didn’t cramp and the conditions didn’t get to me,” the even-keel Kumar said with a smile, alluding to temperatures hovering at or just below 50 degrees.
“It’s really, really nice, especially to say I won it once and I won it again – won it twice in a row.”
Stojanov knows the pressure of attempting to repeat as well.
It wasn’t easy for him Saturday, but the reward was well worth it, especially since his teammates also can call themselves state champions.
“It was great to get it done as a team. Fell short last year, so getting it done as a team was great this year,” Stojanov said.
“Down a set, I had to raise my level, I had to raise my game. I played a great player, so everything had to align for me to get the win. I want to give credit to my coaches and my teammates for cheering me on. It was great overall.”
Burks recalled how the 2018 Division 1 title team also displayed superior depth and won six of eight flights.
He considers that a “fantastic year,” but said what differentiates this group is that every single person on the team held his own and played an important role.
This Black Hawks squad is relatively young, so the future looks bright, too.
“It felt amazing because, like, I was really nervous because early in the season. I barely beat (Gupta) in the third set, but I really felt in that third set (Saturday), I knew his game. When I came here to play him today, I felt great,” said Shaya, who goes by the nickname “Cosmo.”
“It’s amazing (to win the team title) because we all just feel like champions. It was the perfect season.”
PHOTOS (Top) Bloomfield Hills senior Daniel Stojanov sends a volley on the way to repeating at No. 2 singles. (Middle) Northville junior Sachiv Kumar fires a backhand during his No. 1 singles final. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)