Wednesday, May 25, 2011

By Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer

Ricky Davidson nothced the winning point for Leonia at first singles as the Lions won their first section title since 2008.

BOGOTA - When Leonia's Ricky Davidson was a freshman first doubles player, he admittedly did not appreciate his team's run to a section title. He was just happy to help continue a winning tradition, thinking that being a section champion was going to be a yearly passage. But after consecutive losses his sophomore and junior years to eventual champion Verona, Davidson understood how precious and few those opportunities are. With this year being his last shot in a Leonia uniform at being a section champ, it was only fitting that Davidson's point proved to be the clincher.

Davidson battled back to win a first-set tiebreak at first singles, then zipped through the second set to provide the clinching point as top-seeded Leonia won its first North 1, Group 1 sectional title since 2008 with a 5-0 sweep over second-seeded Cresskill at The Bogota Racquet Club on Tuesday.

After getting beaten in the North 1, Group 1 semis by Verona in the past two seasons, the Lions finally exacted some revenge with a 4-1 victory over the Hillbillies last week. The Lions had already swept Cresskill in convincing fashion just two weeks ago with all five victories coming with relative ease, so they came in to the section final with plenty of confidence.

"We were confident that we were playing as well as we've played all year, but it's tough to beat them same team twice in a short period of time," said Leonia head coach Matt Wind. "We knew that would give us a much tougher battle this time around and to their credit, they did that."

The Lions quickly earned two points with a 6-1, 6-2 win from their second doubles tandem of June Park and Evan Abouaf, followed by a steady performance from Andy Lee for a 6-1, 6-1 victory at third singles. This time though, the third point did not come so easily as Cresskill fought hard to stay in the match.

Davidson lost just four games in his first meeting with Cresskill's David Selt, but he was unable to get into a rhythm throughout the first set. Trailing early in the first-set tiebreak, the senior dug deep to win three of the final four points to take the breaker and the opening set. Davidson finally got his serve on track and his aggressive groundstrokes followed as he took the first five games of the second set, then finally raised his arms in victory as he once again was able to cherish being part of a championship team.

"This is just the greatest feeling ever, I couldn't be happier than I am right now," said Davidson. "Once I found a way to win the tiebreak, I finally started to relax and play my game. When we won the section my freshman year, I just thought we would do that every year. It turned out to be much harder than I thought. The seniors, we all wanted to go out as state champs and we did it."

Cresskill (13-5) won the Cougars' only set of the day at first doubles. But Leonia's duo of Dean Gabay and John Watson controlled the net over the final two sets to earn a hard-fought 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 triumph. Leonia (16-2) got its final point at second singles with William Persson using a late break of serve to defeat Andrew Lee.

"We played as hard as we could, but you can only do so much against a team that is deeper and playing at a higher level than you are," said Cresskill head coach Anthony Gianntonnio. "Going from an under .500 season last year to making a section final this year is a big improvement and we realized we accomplished something by getting to this point. When you get to this round though, there is a good chance you just run into a better team. That is pretty much what happened today and there is no shame in that."

Leonia will make its way down to Mercer County Park on Thursday for the Group 1 semifinals where it will take on the two-time defending Group 1 state champion New Providence at 9:00 A.M. with the winner playing in the Group 1 state final at 1:00 P.M. Regardless of what happens down in West Windsor, the Lions have achieved their goal with Davidson closing out the match in style.

Anything else the Lions achieve over the new few days is only an added bonus.

"Winning the section and winning our league were our two goals before the season and we can now check off one of them," added Wind, whose team will play Secaucus sometime this week for the league title. "We've worked so hard for this and for Ricky Davidson to be the one to close it out for us was just the cherry on top of a fantastic season."

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