Liberty beats rival, eyes district
Liberty seniors Luke Appelman and Roman Farhad have shared the same success this season — both enter the postseason undefeated.
How they put up perfect records couldn’t be any more different.
“Luke’s always going to be vocal. That’s just who he is as a kid. He’s much more extroverted,” Liberty coach Christian Conrad said Monday following the Hurricanes’ 6-0 win over Freedom. “Roman’s much more introverted. He won’t show as much on the court but he’s constantly working in his head ways in which he can play the match like a chess match. He’s definitely more analytical in his game.
“Luke is just going to go out there, execute a game plan and then stick to it for as long as humanely possible and grind it out.”
Those contrasting styles were on display Monday at Liberty High School as the Hurricanes (15-0) capped an undefeated regular season with a 6-0 win over the Patriots (12-3).
Appleman got Liberty on the board quickly as his confident swagger seemed to rattle Freedom’s Noah Rodburg, who also entered the day unbeaten, in a dominant 6-2, 6-0 victory.
“I knew to just keep the pressure on him and not let him get confident and string a couple games together,” Appleman said. “I lost the first game and was upset but got mad after that and started playing better.”
A lack of serving accuracy and a handful of double faults early on allowed Rodburg to jump out to a 1-0 lead but a determined Appleman won 12 of the next 13 games and made quick work of Freedom’s star.
Rodburg dealt with some accuracy issues of his own, which combined with Appleman’s exceptional service returns, prevented him from holding serve even once in the match.
“My first set I was double faulting a lot and I don’t think I did at all in the second set,” Appleman said. “His serve is really good when he gets it in and I just tried to return it the best I can. … I thought I played really well today.”
Farhad endured even more of a sluggish start, falling behind 4-1 in the first set to Luke Braido and eventually losing a set for the first time this season, 6-4. Farhad’s poise and calm demeanor when faced with his first deficit of the season was exactly what it took to rally for a 4-6, 6-1, 6-3 win.
“I think what’s most important is that goldfish mentality. Forget what happened in the past and move forward because you can’t change what happened in the past,” Conrad said. “Roman lost in the first set, which may have been the first time he’s ever lost a first set ever except against Freedom’s No. 1 last year. I think he was making some adjustments to his game that obviously didn’t work so we adjusted and he rebounded.”
David Broczkowski, Liberty’s No. 3 singles player, stormed back for his own come from behind victory against Freedom’s Eric Wu to clinch the match for the Hurricanes. The senior dropped the first set 6-2 and needed to break Wu’s serve while facing a 5-4 deficit in the second set to keep the match alive.
He won the next three games to send the match to a decisive third set.
“I just had the idea that I’ve got this and from there it just kept going. I had the energy, I kept hitting the ball hard and kept that momentum going,” Broczkowski said. “It’s always a constant game of ups and downs and you just have to ride the wave sometimes.”
That’s exactly what he did in the third set, racing out to a 3-0 lead before Wu charged back to make it 4-3 and a service game upcoming.
Broczkowski broke again. “I felt like I just had the energy and every game was a new game and I had to go get it,” Broczkowski said. “Sometimes when I get up, I get the feeling that I can relax a little bit, but in this match, I kept reminding myself that I was down so that I would keep pushing to win.”
The doubles duo of Leo Babbin and Elijah Quan prevailed in a three-set thriller against Matt Davis and Hardeep Sandhu before Finn Brown/Connor Ohl and Caden Vermuelen/EJ Powers rounded out the team victory for the Hurricanes.
The area’s teams will now have to switch gears and prepare for the individual tournaments that take place before the team tournaments. Farhad and Appleman, who teamed up to win the district doubles title last year, now will shoot for an individual title.
Both are hoping to meet in the final with a district crown on the line.
“It’s going to be fun because it’s going to be the biggest match,” Farhad said. “I feel like Luke and I are the two best players in the district. Facing him is going to be fun.”
“We’ve played each other a lot but obviously I’m going to try to win,” Appleman said.
The District 11 individual championships start Monday.