The Nutley HS girls tennis team poses at the Essex County Tournament at the Althea Gibson Center at Branch Brook Park in Newark on Tuesday, Sept. 19 (Photo Courtesy of ECT)
NUTLEY, NJ — The Nutley High School girls tennis team won the Super Essex Conference–Colonial Division championship. It was the second straight year that the Raiders won the division. Last year, the Raiders were co-champs with Cedar Grove. This year, they won the title outright.
The Raiders finished with an undefeated mark of 8-0 in the division. They finished with an 11-7 overall record. In all eight divisional matches, they only lost one singles match. They went 5-0 in seven matches and won 4-1 against Bloomfield.
The lineup consisted of junior Alexis Fontanilla at first singles, senior Rebecca Caporaso at second singles, junior Sindi Gjonbocari at third singles, sophomore Lara Hindistan and sophomore Marguerite Ziek at first doubles, and senior Marina Calleo and sophomore Viha Kothakanda at second doubles.
Valerie Martin, who completed her 16th season as the NHS head coach, was ecstatic for her team.
“Last year our goal was to win the division and we were co-champions, so we were thrilled,” Martin said. “This year, our goal was not to tie, but to win by ourselves, and we had that mental focus throughout every single match we played. The biggest thing about this team was that every girl was the same player as last year, but their mental ability and skill set was a level stronger this year. It was amazing to see the growth and the mental toughness with these girls, that they were good last year, but they were that much better this year. I am unbelievably proud of them. Everybody just improved their game tremendously. It was wonderful. Parent support was fantastic, which meant a lot. Over the years, I never had this amount of support, and it really showed in the success of this season.”
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