Head coach Valerie Martin with her Nutley HS girls' tennis team.
NUTLEY, NJ (updated Wednesday Oct. 19, 3:29 p.m.) – The Nutley High School girls’ varsity tennis team, under head coach Valerie Martin, enjoyed a fantastic season.
The Lady Raiders finished with an 11-4 overall record and were co-champions of the Super Essex Conference-Colonial Division. The team finished 9-1 in the division and shared the title with West Orange HS.
The Raiders started the season strong, winning all of their matches and beating all the teams in the division twice except for West Orange. NHS was 8-0 and only had two matches to finish the season as the champion, against West Orange and Bloomfield.
NHS had already beaten West Orange once in the division, and once in the Essex County Tournament, “so we thought we had the edge over them and would be undefeated, until we met them at their courts,” Martin said. “I think maybe we were over confident and ended up losing a very disappointing match. Both of our teams were now 8-1. They then beat Bloomfield, which brought them to 9-1.
“Coincidently, Bloomfield was our last match and a win meant we could be co-champs with West Orange, and a loss to them would mean second place. I told them this was the most important match they would play. There was a very fine line between telling them we MUST win and putting too much pressure on them, and relaying to them how they would feel to come all this way only to come in second and having them play focused and not nervous. I had to choose my words carefully because in this sport where you are out there by yourself, each player has to be dealt with differently because they all react differently to pressure.
“We had beaten Bloomfield before, 5-0, and I told them to remember what happened with West Orange and not to be overly confident. We found ourselves at 2-2 and it was getting dark. The second doubles went out and said “Don’t worry, coach, we got this!” It was amazing how it was down to the youngest and newest players and they felt the confidence to play without being nervous. They proved to be true to their word and won the match.
“The excitement was about winning the division, but it was also about ‘how’ we won, it certainly wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be at the beginning of the season.
“This team has proved to be not only talented, but a group of girls of all ages with tremendous camaraderie and compassion for each other and a passion for the game which is essential. If they weren’t the most competitive players to begin the season, they learned how to be along the way. They would play three to four matches a week and still come out on the weekends to practice as long as one or more players or coaches were willing to play.”
Though they would have loved to win the divisional title outright, “we are happy with the final result,” Martin said. “The girls were disappointed that it wasn’t down to the total matches won or the fact that we beat West Orange twice. When I told them it is only ‘division’ matches, you could see the competitiveness on their faces.
“All in all, it was a great accomplishment for everyone. Our overall record was 11-4. We made it to the second round of the states and our first singles player, Gracie Ahrens, had a 70 percent winning record to qualify for the state singles. We won the matches we should have and lost to the teams that outplayed us with their strength. We had a very rewarding year.”
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