Abington Heights is set to defend its boys\u2019 team tennis championship in the Lackawanna League while carving its place in the program\u2019s storied history.<\/p>\n
Coming off a season that concluded with a 12th straight District 2 Class 3A championship, a singles final where two teammates faced each other and a doubles final where two pairings played, the Comets are rebuilding.\u00a0Still, they remain the overwhelming favorite to claim another league title as the regular season is set to begin this week.<\/p>\n
Junior William Arp returns as the only singles starter for the Comets. He was 10-0 at No. 2 singles last season and 15-2 overall. The two-time All-Region selection has a 29-5 career record.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am looking forward to this a lot,\u201d Arp said. \u201cLast year, the guys and I were all pretty much in the same positions as the year before, and that made things a little easier for us to form a team. This year, we have a new group with really good freshmen who will be instrumental to the team\u2019s success. We will have guys in new positions, and we will be developing a new chemistry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been playing a lot in the offseason and with guys on the team, especially. Hopefully, playing together will help us a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last season, Brady Comstock and Liam Farrell played at No. 1 doubles for the Comets, won the District 2 Class 3A doubles championship and finished with a 17-1 record.\u00a0They will likely move into the singles lineup.<\/p>\n
Scranton Prep has only one returning starter in Class 2A, all-star Matthew Cohen, who was 10-1 in the league at No. 2 singles. Still, the Cavaliers are expected to contend in the league and District 2 Class 2A races.<\/p>\n
After Arp, Holy Cross senior Alex Harrison is the next top singles player returning in the league. He reached the District 2 Class 2A quarterfinals last season and was 13-4. He is a two-time All-Region selection with a career record of 24-8.<\/p>\n
Ray Zhang, Harrison\u2019s teammate and doubles partner in the District 2 Class 2A tournament, is a returning Lackawanna League Coaches\u2019 Class 2A all-star at No. 2 singles.<\/p>\n
Harrison and Zhang helped the Crusaders finish 9-2 in the league last season.<\/p>\n
Valley View senior Nick Burak is a returning Lackawanna League Class 3A all-star. He was 6-3 at No. 1 singles to lead the Cougars, who also return starters Billy Giovagnoli and Cooper Rawlings.<\/p>\n
Honesdale\u2019s Lewis Smith (5-6) was also a Class 2A all-star in the league. He returns along with starters Matthew Christiansen, Michael Reiprich, and Asher Eck.<\/p>\n
Scranton\u2019s Tom Bergman returns as a Class 3A all-star at No. 1 singles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Abington Heights is set to defend its boys\u2019 team tennis championship in the Lackawanna League while carving its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[305,178,180,179,726],"class_list":["post-135255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-high-school-sports","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}