Coming into the season, coach Marty Margulies knew he had a deep squad of singles players. What he didn't expect was to place all four of his singles players in the finals of the SWC individual championships. After two days of non-stop tennis at Monroe's Wolfe Park, the finals began with Newtown's #1 player, Cam McCleary, taking on Joel Barlow's Dennis Henning. The two top players exchanged furious blows in splitting their first two sets. Eventually Henning could no longer continue and was forced to retire giving Newtown the first crown of the day. But there was more to come. As McCleary was collecting his hardware, teammate Sean Elliott was in middle of a battle on court 4. In a true David and Golliath scenario, Elliott (5'8") was trading groundstrokes with Joel Barlow's Joe Greenspan (6'6"). Elliott raced out to take the first set 6-0 only to have Greenspan rally and take the second in a tiebreaker. In the deciding third set, Elliott fought off a late rally from Greenspan to win 7-5, giving Newtown its second title of the day. But just as Elliott was shaking hands with his opponent, Newtown's #2, Tyler Ruefenacht was completing his amazing comeback against Bunnell's Mike Dolph. With a display of pure power tennis, Dolph had rushed out to an early 1 set lead before Ruefenacht changed tactics. As if he had flipped a switch, Ruefenacht used his superior foot speed to negate Dolph's power and turn it against him. The result was a hard fought 3 set victory and another Newtown title. At #3, Newtown's Ricky Fuentes battled valiantly, but came up just short against Weston's Oscar Morris.
As a team, the Nighthawks finished second in the SWC with an all time best 13-2 record. Next and final stop on the season is the state tournament. Based on their record, Newtown has qualified to send a full lineup.
Congratulations on a great season and good luck at States !!!
