Shady Side pair ready for ‘next level’
It has been a busy month between the WPIAL Class 3A doubles finals and the PIAA Class 3A finals for Shady Side Academy’s David Mnuskin and Sam Bitzer. In that time, the two led the Bulldogs to a runner-up finish to Fox Chapel in the WPIAL Class 3A team finals at Washington & Jefferson and helped the team to a win against District 10 champion McDowell in the first round of the state tournament before losing to eventual state champion Lower Merion in the quarterfinals. Despite that, the Shady Side Academy tandem is ready for what comes next in the PIAA Class 3A doubles tournament, which opens Friday morning at Hershey Racquet Club. “We’re going to prepare and start getting to the next level,” Mnuskin said. “We’ll see what we can do there.” Shady Side Academy has sent its share of doubles teams to the state finals, most recently in 2019 when Naman Dua and Colin Gramley won the WPIAL title and headed to Hershey. But the Bulldogs have never brought home a state championship. Dua and Gramley lost to Peters Township’s Connor Bruce and Ellian Ascencio in the finals that year. Mnuskin and Bitzer are hoping they can be the first Bulldogs to go all the way. “It’s surprising,” Mnuskin said, “But we’re just going to play our game, play practice matches and get used to those fast indoor courts.” Mnuskin and Bitzer played on those faster courts last week and had little success. Mnuskin lost to Justin Yi and Bitzer to Brian Yi in straight sets in the team tournament. The Yis also won the doubles tournament last year, but are not competing this year as Justin qualified in singles. This time around, though, Mnuskin and Bitzer will be playing together and will take their combined skills up against Yevgen Kuryanov and Alex Knyaskov of Central Bucks East in the first round. “We just have to get low, take the ball early and move up into the court,” Mnuskin said. “We also have to have big serves.” While Shady Side Academy will prepare for the third-place team out of District 1, WPIAL runners-up Prerit Yadav and Dhruv Kulkarni of Franklin Regional will be taking on District 2 champions San Christman and Luke Morgan of Abington Heights. Christman won the District 2 title last year with Sam Weis and lost in the first round to North Allegheny’s Chase Davidson and Shomik Telang. Carrick senior Aiden Forcucci and junior Paul Biagetti will represent the City League and will take on District 12 champions Dwyer Barrett and Jordan Sztejman in the first round. Because North Catholic didn’t have a team for a long period of time, the Trojans were unable to even field a doubles team in the WPIAL tournament, much less send one to the state finals. This year, though, senior Brody Golla and junior Alex Garvey became the first North Catholic doubles team ever to win a WPIAL Class 2A championship and will be the school’s first representatives in the PIAA Class 2A tournament. “We have more experience playing and, winning [WPIAL’s] will give us a much better draw going into states,” Golla said. “We’re more prepared, we know our strengths and weaknesses and what to work on.” Golla and Garvey will open the state tournament against Lancaster Mennonite seniors Reece Girdharry and Will Stillman, the third-place team out of District 3. Traditionally, WPIAL twosomes have not fared well in the Class 2A doubles tournament. Only two teams — Sewickley Academy’s Ryan Gex and Neil Rana in 2017 and the Panthers’ Will Nocito and Dylan Parda in 2018 — have ever won the state championship in the classification. Neither South Park nor Thomas Jefferson has ever won a state doubles championship, but both will be represented in Hershey this year. The South Park team of Tim Lakatos and Alex Duing will open with District 12 champions Daniel Li and Kevin McHale of PIAA Class 2A team champion Masterman, while the Jaguars’ Drew Dimidjian and Tony Sparta will square off against District 1 champions Paul Pabalan and Felix Flis of Holy Ghost Prep.