Old Bridge wraps up another solid season
East Brunswick
tennis team wins
CJ Group IV title
BY WARREN RAPPLEYEA
Staff Writer

With four of its seven starters coming back, the Old Bridge High School boys tennis team will be looking to add to its successes next season.

This spring, the Knights were 14-5 prior to yesterday’s season finale against South Brunswick. It’s the third meeting for the two teams. Old Bridge won the first time, but South Brunswick came out ahead in their second meeting to eliminate the Knights from the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group IV tourney.

With a victory, Old Bridge would have finished in second place in the Greater Middlesex Conference (GMC) Red Division. A South Brunswick victory would have forged a tie for second.

"We have a good nucleus of players to build with, and they gained a lot of experience this year," said coach Bob Brander, whose team also finished second in the GMC Tournament.

The Knights excel at singles where senior Jason Lefkowitz owns an 11-7 mark at first. Ryan Glubo is 19-2 at second singles while fellow junior Jaishal Patel is 20-2 out of the third spot. Both Lefkowitz and Glubo have qualified for the state individual tournament, which begins next week.

At first doubles, senior Andrew Godzwon and junior Sunil Kesavan rebounded from a slow start and are now 13-9. Kesavan also played three singles matches. Brander has shuttled several players into the lineup at second doubles. Greg Drobis, a promising sophomore, saw most of the action, and his partners have included juniors Andy Lukovsky and Gerard Coleman, sophomore Arkady Vidgop, and freshmen Joe Iacona and Patrick Liu.

"Our team had a strong year and I was very pleased with the improvement in our first doubles team," Brander said. "We also had the chance to get several others some playing time and that will help us next year."

Bears take Group IV sectional title

The East Brunswick boys tennis team won its first sectional title since 1992 on Tuesday with a hard-fought victory over West Windsor-South.

The Bear’s Illya Kazakin-Kuteyer survived a three-set comeback effort from WWS’s Shintaro Mori to earn a 1-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory and propel East Brunswick to the 3-2 win.

The Bears’ first point came from (who else?) Vivek Subramanian, who won his first singles match 6-2, 6-1, over Benny Gordon-Goldstein. The other point came from the second-doubles tandem of Roger Wang and Bob Ren, who defeated Dennis Tuan and Brett Butler, 6-2, 6-2.

But it was Kazakin-Kuteyer’s effort that proved to be the difference, as the Bears advanced to the Group IV semifinals, where they will face South Jersey Group IV champion Cherry Hill East today at 9 a.m. at Mercer County Park. The winner will vie for the Group IV title later in the day.

Though the Bears are the only local team still playing in team competition, a number of local players are preparing for the state individual tournament, which is slated to get under way on June 5.

Among the local singles players who will be in action are Subramanian, who is the tournament’s top seed, and his teammates Sonny Pollosco and Ross Cohn, Old Bridge’s Lefkowitz and Glubo, Sayreville’s Greg Czachov and Monroe’s Frank Senatore.

The Bears’ doubles tandem of Jay Kaplan and David Liu are the second seed in the doubles tournament, while WWS’s Brian Lee and Gregg Kelley, who beat the Bear tandem, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 on Tuesday, is seeded fourth. That tournament is also slated to get under way on June 5.