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By John Hartsock
jhartsock@altoonamirror.com
HOLLIDAYSBURG -- The Hollidaysburg Area High School boys tennis team has had a fabulous season, winning 18 of its 19 matches and earning a berth in the District 4-6 Class 3A team championship match for the third straight spring.
The only order of business left for the Golden Tigers to complete now is to travel to State College this afternoon and reclaim the district team championship that the Little Lions took from them last year.
Second-seeded Hollidaysburg trimmed third-seeded Altoona, 4-1 in the tournament semifinals at the Golden Tiger Tennis facility on a glorious, sun-splashed late Tuesday afternoon to earn a berth in this afternoon's championship bout against top-seeded State College, which topped Central Mountain in Tuesday's other semifinal.
Junior Ben Johnson and senior Jadd Younes logged singles victories, and the Hollidaysburg doubles teams of seniors Haddy Obeid and Collin Edgell, along with freshmen Felix Xu and Michael Waibel, were also victorious, as Hollidaysburg assured itself of another shot at the district team championship.
The Golden Tigers won that team title over Central Mountain two years ago, but lost a narrow 3-2 decision to State College in the title bout last year.
"State College has so many good players, and they've been the standard-bearer for boys tennis teams in District 6,'' veteran Hollidaysburg coach Brian Denis said. "If we go up there and give it 110 percent, I'll be completely happy.
"Our top five players on this year's team had to go through going up to State College and losing a tough decision in last year's district team championship match,'' Denis added. "Hopefully our guys will use that experience as an incentive on Wednesday.''
Hollidaysburg won both regular-season meetings with Altoona, but Denis knew that beating the Mountain Lions for a third time in Tuesday's all-important showdown would not be an easy task.
"We played them well both times during the regular season, but they're a very good team, and we knew that it would be super tough to beat them three times in a row,'' Denis said. "We were just fortunate to do it. Altoona is one of the better boys tennis teams that you'll see in the state of Pennsylvania.''
Johnson, a Hollidaysburg junior playing number 2 singles, defeated Altoona junior Josh Adams, 6-2, 6-4, by closing the match strong.
Johnson trailed the second set, 4-3, before scoring the last three points.
"Ben had lost to Josh earlier in the year, and that match today could have gone either way,'' Denis said. "Ben was down 4-3 but he came back strong with three straight points to close it out.''
Johnson started and finished the match strong.
"It was a good match,'' Johnson said. "I started off well, but he came back and made it a really tough match, and then I grinded it out.''
Hollidaysburg junior Jadd Younes, playing at number three singles, defeated Altoona senior Kadyn Carey, 6-3, 6-3.
"Jadd had a really nice win for us today, too,'' Denis said.
Younes is hoping that Hollidaysburg can keep on rolling in the district team championship bout today.
"It feels great to be in the finals for the third year in a row,'' Younes said. "We lost to State College there last year. I hope that we can beat them this year, and go out with a bang as seniors.''
Hollidaysburg swept both doubles matches Tuesday to padlock the semifinal victory. The Golden Tigers' number one doubles squad of Obeid and Edgell carved out a 6-2, 6-2 victory over the Altoona team of junior Brady Sassano and senior Nick Hogan.
Hu and Waibel picked up Hollidaysburg's other doubles victory, defeating the Altoona team of freshman Aiden Aiken and sophomore Max Chille, 6-2, 6-0.
"Our doubles teams have been rock-solid for us all year, and we were banking on them today,'' Denis said.
Altoona, which finished an 11-6 season, got its lone victory in number one singles, where sophomore Luke Mitchell topped senior Nathan Barton, 6-2, 7-6 (7-5 tiebreaker).
"It was a great win for Luke,'' Altoona coach Jake Colledge said. "Luke had played (Barton) twice before this season and lost both times, but Luke was more focused today.
"Luke decreased his number of unforced errors from the previous two matches, and played really steady,'' Colledge added.
Barton was playing with a sore shoulder but soldiered his way through to make the match close, Denis said.