COLUMBIA, MD — Atholton junior Matt Sklar had mixed emotions after winning the Howard County boys singles championship on Saturday afternoon at the Wilde Lake Tennis Center.
Sklar was relieved and exhilarated to have battled back through three grueling sets and a tiebreaker to defeat talented Centennial freshman Ram Kotnana, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-5), for his second straight county championship.
However, Sklar also had to watch as the Centennial team crowded on to the court around a disappointed Kotnana to celebrate their first County Cup since 2001, ending a streak of three straight crowns by the Raiders.
"I knew that whether I won or lost, it wouldn't make a difference in the County Cup, so I started just swinging and it was a little less pressure. I knew that either way I'd get another shot at regionals," said Sklar, who trailed Kotnana, 4-3, 5-4 and 6-5, in the third set before forcing a tiebreaker. "I was looking forward to regionals more as me vs. Ram. I was looking forward to this as trying to get Atholton to win another cup. But it's all right, we'll come back next year and see what we can do."
While Kotnana fell in the finals, Centennial was represented atop the podium by the mixed doubles team of junior Andrew Tsai and sophomore Jazmin Walle.
"We were just trying to keep it consistent and have that intensity," said Walle, who defeated Mt. Hebron's Will Chanmugam and Stephanie Carroll alongside Tsai, 6-0, 6-0. "We felt pretty confident."
Tsai said that playing with Walle during the summer and on a national team helped the duo build chemistry.
"We've been playing together for three or four years," he said. "It was mostly about having fun, and we stepped up our game for the finals."
Centennial coach Erin Fisher was concerned after several of the Eagles entries were eliminated in the quarterfinals, but their depth was even greater than she realized. With representatives in three of the five final rounds, including girls doubles finalists Lexi Hackerman and Gaby Schito, the Eagles had clinched the County Cup midway through Saturday's championship round.
"I didn't want to believe it until everything was all counted and everything was in," said Fisher, whose undefeated boys also clinched the regular season title last week. "Two days ago I thought we took a big hit. We started out having all of our players advancing, and then we started to get picked off one by one. It seemed like we lost almost our entire team in one day. That was brutal and I thought we were knocked out of the Cup race. But after seeing all the scores, I realized that — 'Oh my gosh, we still have a chance at this!' That was new life and it was exciting."
While the Centennial boys finished the regular season undefeated, the girls lost only twice, and are tied with Mt. Hebron in second place with two matches to make up.
"We had a lot of depth and they just go out and play their game. They did an awesome job this season ... They all come out and they're team players. They support each other, they help each other out in practices, and they're really great to work with," Fisher said. "I'm so proud that I'm their coach."
Sklar's win over Kotnana may have been the most exciting match of the finals, but Marriotts Ridge sophomore Abby Thornton's victory over Atholton senior Victoria Kogan in the girls singles championship might have been the most impressive.
Thornton, the defending county champion, had lost to Kogan, a 2013 state finalist, 8-2 in their regular season meeting in late April. But on Saturday, Thornton defeated Kogan — who sat out of high school competition last year to focus on USTA play — 6-0, 6-1.
"I wasn't really expecting anything. I was just going to go out there, do my best and play my game, and whatever happened, happened," said Thornton, who has helped lead the Mustang girls to a 15-1 regular season record in defense of their 2014 county title.
The Mustangs' only loss was to Atholton, and Thornton's loss to Kogan was the clincher.
"I definitely played a lot better today than I did that day," Thornton said. "Today I just came out strong, played my game, executed well, and that was the difference."
The Marriotts Ridge girls can still clinch the regular season title with a win at Howard on Monday, and coach Scott Dingman likes his team's chances after Thornton's performance on Saturday.
"She just didn't make errors today. She attacked right from the beginning, and even when Victoria tried backing her up she was able to fend her off and keep coming in, keep attacking and keep the pressure on her," Dingman said. "It says a lot about her mental toughness and how good of a physical player she is. We talked a lot last year about her trying to hit a little bit of a heavier ball and consistently keep that ball a little deeper. She's striking the ball better this year, she's hitting the ball heavier and deeper with more consistency."
The River Hill boys doubles team of sophomore Prateek Swamykumar and senior Nick Zhu also delivered a dominant performance in the finals, defeating Marriotts Ridge's Christian Tringali and Connor Bivens, 6-2, 6-1.
Zhu said that coming into this season as state champions has definitely changed the atmosphere coming into the postseason.
"We definitely wanted to get together to defend our state championship," Zhu said. "There's a lot of pressure, but now that we won a county championship we feel more confident."
It also helps that Swamykumar — an undersized freshman last spring — has grown several inches and put on considerable muscle since last year.
"We've been playing together for three or four years. I feel like we know each others game a lot better," he said. "We worked on ground strokes a lot over the summer and that made our ground strokes a lot better, and it helps that I got bigger. My serve is bigger."
While three of the county champions were repeat performers, the championship experience was thrilling and new for Mt. Hebron's girls doubles team of sophomore Tess Weber and senior Serene Mathew, who defeated Centennial's Hackerman and Schito, 7-5, 6-0.
Mathew won a girls doubles regional championship as a freshman and junior, and placed fourth in the state as a sophomore, but had never won a county title until Saturday.
"This is my first county, it's exciting," said Mathew, who partnered with Kiran Pant each of the last two seasons. "(Pant) graduated and then Tess came and now we play together. It's been fun. We have classes together too, so we talk about tennis all the time."
Weber said that after struggling to win a hardfought first set, she and Mathew talked more in the second set to cruise to victory.
"Serene and I are good friends off the court as well, so we work well together on the court," Weber said. "There was a lot more communication between the two of us than the first set."
The top four finishers in each bracket now advance to the regional tournament, which begins next Thursday at the Wilde Lake Tennis Center and is scheduled to finish on Friday at Howard High.
Sklar, exhausted after his grueling showdown with Kotnana on Saturday, is already looking forward to a rematch.
"He's tough," Sklar said. "That was a doozy. If I see him again in regionals it's going to be a good one."