WOOSTER — Last time the Wooster Generals won an Ohio Cardinal Conference tennis championship, Henry Pozefsky wasn’t yet holding a rattle, let alone a racket.
“Nineteen years,” said the two-time OCC Player of the Year after his win at No. 1 singles Friday helped end Lexington’s seven-year reign and propelled the Generals to their first league crown since 2007.
“It’s just an incredible feeling. Every day we go into the school gym, they’ve got all the banners up for the conference champions. We’ve got one of the longest droughts in the school, so it feels so good to finally take it home and get the victory.”
The tournament started on the outdoor courts at the College of Wooster before rain forced play indoors. All five championship matches inside Aspen Racquet Club featured Wooster vs. Lex, with the Generals prevailing at No. 1 and 2 singles and No. 1 doubles to finish with a 64-60 edge in points.
Pozefsky, the POY by virtue of his win at No. 1, beat fellow senior Cooper Remy 6-1, 6-1 in a rematch of last year’s title bout at No. 1. Pozefsky won all three of their varsity encounters over the last two seasons, including their clash a couple of weeks ago when host Wooster won that OCC dual 3-2.
“He’s a really strong player, really consistent, gets a lot of balls back,” Pozefsky said of Remy. “So I go in thinking I have to hit a lot of balls, play a lot of long points, hope he gives me something short that I can attack and move forward on.
“I see him at (USTA) tournaments, so I’ve known him for quite awhile. We played each other a few years ago in Columbus and in a tournament last fall that was a pretty tight match.”
How good is Pozefsky? Remy easily would have been a two-time POY himself without Pozefsky in his path.
“Henry is powerful,” said Lex coach Ron Schaub, who has overseen all 18 of Lexington’s OCC titles since the league’s 2004 inaugural season. “He’s strong and hits a good ball. When you’ve got that (dominant) No. 1, you can do some different things. You can load up your doubles. That’s what happened when we played in the regular season. (Wooster coach Justin Crooks) loaded up doubles with his next four best players (after Pozefsky).”
This is the second long title reign by Lex that has come to an end thanks to the Crooks family. Justin’s father, Rick, was head coach at Ashland when the Arrows won back-to-back titles in 2016 and 2017, ending an eight-year title run by Lex.
Justin played for his father at Ashland and is a 2000 alum. This completed his sixth year at the helm for Wooster, with the previous five ending in runner-up finishes. All but one of his top seven players was back from last year.
Even though Justin has one less boys title, he’s still one up on his dad because he also owns a pair of OCC championships with the Wooster girls.
“If we’re ever going to do it, I thought this was the year, especially since Lexington always has another wave (of players) coming,” Crooks said. “With Henry being such a good singles player at No. 1, it’s hard to win without having the best No. 1.”
Wooster finished the regular season with 28 points, two more than Lex, based on courts won during OCC duals. Lex lost four points this spring, three in the defeat by Wooster and one when Schaub played a junior varsity doubles team against Dover.
Had Lex won three of Friday’s five championship matches, the Minutemen and Generals would have tied for the title, with 62 points apiece. That’s based on receiving eight points for each division win in the tournament and six points for each second place finish.
Schaub is not a Hall of Fame coach for nothing. Over the years, he has been a master at manipulating his lineup to give his team its best chance to win, whether it’s at the conference, district or state level.
He knew he had to switch things up after losing the earlier dual match to Wooster. Instead of playing it straight, with Remy, Philip Etzel and Tony Palmer at their customary No. 1, 2 and 3 singles spots, respectively, he paired Etzel with Preston Huynh at No. 1 doubles, moved Palmer up to No. 2 singles and switched Jack Campbell from doubles to No. 3 singles.
The strategy nearly worked.
Campbell beat Tony Rammel 6-0, 6-3 while Lex’s No. 2 doubles team of Ben Wiltanger and Brighton Boemer beat Jake Hung and Nathan Spruell 6-4, 6-1.
Etzel and Huynh each won an OCC title last year – Etzel at No. 2 singles and Huynh at No. 2 doubles – but their collaboration didn’t work out as well. They fell 6-2, 7-5 to Nick Kakanuru and Saxon Ranney.
At No. 2 singles, Wooster’s Andrew James came through in the clutch, rallying from deficits of 5-1 in the first set and 5-4 in the second for a 7-5, 7-5 victory over Palmer.
James was trailing Palmer 5-2 before the tournament was moved to Aspen and then reeled off five straight games once play resumed indoors.
Being even-keeled served James well when it came to digging out of holes.
“(That match) definitely could have changed the day, but Andrew is such a steady person,” Crooks said. “You can never tell if he’s winning or losing.”
In this case, he was waiting to burst until the team celebration at the end.
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Title-starved Wooster ends Lex’s seven-year reign in OCC tennis
Reporting by Jon Spencer, Mansfield News Journal / Mansfield News Journal
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