Hills East Boys Tennis Wins County Title

The boy’s tennis team defeated Ross School in the finals of the Suffolk County championship Tuesday afternoon by a score of 6-1.

The match took place at Smithtown East but the result was the same as it’s been all season for the Thunderbirds–a victory.

First singles Chris Hunter–who was pushed into singles competition because of an illness to the usual first singles player Zain Ali–won his match 7-6 (7-5), 1-6, 6-1 over Richard Sipala to cap his team’s second straight county title.

Hills East has also won six of the last seven county championships, according to head coach Tom Depelteau.

“From day one this has been the day we played for,” Depelteau said. “Even with all the rain and the wind and the cold we played well today. They were highly motivated and they really showed their skills.”

Top-seeded Hills did not have much trouble handling No. 2 seed Ross, sweeping the singles matches and winning two of three doubles matches. Second singles Eric Bertuglia and fourth singles Brett Teplitz both won their matches 6-0, 6-0. Third singles Kyle Alper won his match 6-3, 6-0.

First singles was the only close singles match on the day but Hills was still able to prevail.

“It was interesting, just the consistency factor,” Hunter said of moving back to singles. “I’m used to hanging out at the net a lot more which you can’t do when playing singles but I’m fine with it. I love singles just as much as I love doubles.”

Hunter and Sipala met in the same match last year with Hunter coming out on top. Hills had already wrapped up the county championship as Hunter and Sipala began their third set.

“After he split sets I said, 'Why don’t we just go home?'” Depelteau said. “But he wasn’t going to leave here with a tie on his record.”

Hills moves on to the Long Island championship, where it will square off against Cold Spring Harbor Wednesday at 4 p.m. at the Wheatley School in Old Westbury. Both teams are undefeated this spring. Hills lost to Cold Spring Harbor 6-1 in the LI title match last year. 

Coach Depelteau said that whatever happens in the Long Island championship is “gravy” and that winning the county title is always his team’s biggest goal.

Hunter and the rest of the Thunderbirds just want to keep playing–and winning.

“I’m just happy to win regardless of the day and place,” Hunter said. "I’m happy for the team; to keep winning the county title is awesome.”