PETERS TOWNSHIP AIMS TO DEFEND TITLE
About this time in a normal year, Peters Township girls tennis coach Phyllis Derienzo would already be shuffling her starting lineup in her head.
After all, the Indians won the WPIAL Class 3A team title and return the PIAA doubles champions in sophomore Marra Bruce and junior Kat Wang.
“We’re having open play for the girls and not doing any coaching, but it’s so important to have that connect and building that camaraderie,” Derienzo said. “A lot of them have been playing all summer. We had a big group graduate, but we still have our 1-2-3 singles, which is good.”
Then again, thanks to COVID-19, this isn’t a normal year.
“It’s a fickle year because we still don’t know if we’re having sports yet — we won’t know until Aug. 21 — but I’m proceeding and we’re getting ready,” Derienzo said. “We are definitely gearing up. I’m hoping we’re able to be safe, first of all, and if one person gets a positive, it’s a 14day quarantine for the whole team.”
Having that kind of ambiguity can be difficult during the regular season, but with a shortened year, positive tests could wreak havoc on the WPIAL playoffs. For an individual, it could mean missing the singles and/or doubles tournament, but for a team to have a positive once the tournaments start, there has been no clear definition of how it would proceed, whether it would be a hold on the bracket or if the team with the positive test would be forced to forfeit.
“I don’t want to ask too much of our athletic director [Brian Geyer] because his world is spinning just like I imagine all athletic directors lives are in any six months in their entire career,” Derienzo said. “It’s a tall ask where you’re even going to have a WPIAL playoff or a state playoff where you have to travel. I don’t know if those things are happening, but I’m just hoping we can get through sections because that’s where I’m looking.”
Whether or not there is a postseason, Peters Township is like every other team in just attempting to guide itself through the chaos that could ensue once the season begins. If it begins.
“It blows your mind when you think of it in those terms. We’re masking up when we’re off the court and wear one until we get on the court and try to social distance,” Derienzo said. “I think we’re going to have to go into this season with a great amount of patience and grace
as a team and for each other and for our opponents and just be happy to be on the court.”
Class 2A
Sewckley Academy is in the midst of a run of success that no Class 2A girls tennis team has seen.
Not only have the Panthers won the past three consecutive WPIAL titles and can join Quaker Valley (2004-07) as the only programs in the classification with four championships in a row, they can become the first WPIAL team to win three consecutive state titles.
That is, if everyone comes back. “It has been challenging because the dialogue has always changed whether a season is going to happen or if it’s not going to happen, but you have to proceed as if the season is going to be played,” Sewickley
Academy coach Whitney Snyder said. “People are excited and I think, at the end of the day, kids want to be around their friends and they want to have structure.”
If Sewickley comes back at full strength, it will have one of the more formidable lineups in the state. Seniors Evelyn Safar, Simran Bedi and Christina Walton were the top three singles players for the team that swept Knoch, 3-0, in the state championship match last year.
This year, once again, it will likely come down to the Panthers and the Knights as Knoch returns several of its key players, including three-time WPIAL Class 2A singles champion Laura Greb.
Greb is looking to become the first singles player in either classification to win singles titles all four years.