Left to right: Head Coach Jeff Mazurek, Varsity Captain Siena Pizzano, Asstistant Coach Mike Marini.
WEST ORANGE, NJ – The West Orange High School girls’ varsity tennis team is enjoying a stellar season.
The Lady Mountaineers, under head coach Jeff Mazurek, sported an impressive 10-2 record through Oct. 13.
The team is led by junior captain Siena Pizzano, who stands at 9-3 on the season, and by the strength of the doubles teams. Kaia Baker and Alynna Sanchez are 10-2 at first doubles while Noor Qureshi and Julia Lawrence are 11-1 at second doubles.
Recently, WOHS defeated Hackensack, 3-2, in a very close match in the first round of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association North Jersey, Section 1, Group 4 Tournament, but was then defeated by top- seeded Ridgewood in the second round.
The Mountaineers followed that up with their biggest win of the season against Bloomfield.
WOHS won the two doubles matches and lost the second and third singles matches, leaving it up to the first singles match to decide the outcome.
Pizzano, playing for the first time in the first singles spot, endured through several seemingly devastating deficits during a marathon three-set match that lasted 3 1/2 hours and emerged with a win to give WOHS the victory. After falling behind 4-0 in the first set, she battled back to go ahead 6-5 and had several chances to put away her opponent but fell short and wound up losing the set 6-7 after a 7-2 tiebreaker. Then in the second set, she again fell behind 4-0 but somehow managed to fight back to get even in the set. This time she came away with a 7-5 win to even the match at 1-1.
The final set was a seesaw battle that saw the players exchange games throughout the set. Each faced match points at several times only to escape and extend the match. As was the case with the first set, they once again got to 6-6, thereby requiring the set and match to be settled with yet another tie-breaker. Pizzano quickly fell behind 2-0 and then 4-1 in the tiebreaker but battled back to tie it at 4-4 and then finally going on to close out the tiebreaker at 7-5, winning the game, set and match.
“Siena put on one of the most impressive performances I have seen as a coach and ultimately clinched the match and a share of first place in the Super Essex Conference Colonial Division,” said Mazurek, noting a win against Orange will guarantee at least a share of the conference championship.
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