Senior Avi Huber and NV/Demarest lifted the North 1, Group 2 state sectional title trophy after a 5-0 win over River Dell on Monday.

DEMAREST – Playing first singles last season as a sophomore, maybe a year before he was truly ready, Northern Valley/Demarest’s Andrew Piekny took a couple of lumps. It’s a high profile slot for a program that won five straight state sectional championships and back-to-back Group 2 state championships during an incredible run that ended in the spring of 2022.

“Playing first single last year and even first doubles as a freshman was very hard for me because the competition is so high here,” said Piekny. “It’s still tough now, but I learned so much last year. I gained so much experience. I went into last year knowing that I might lose a lot, but I see now that it really helped me.”

Down 4-2 in a third set tiebreaker with the result of this year’s state sectional tournament final still hanging in the balance, Piekny rallied back to grab a 6-2, 3-6,10-6 victory in the top flight that put Demarest back in the Winner’s Circle. The Norsemen ended what might have been the best season in River Dell boys tennis history or at least since 1970 with a 5-0 victory on Monday afternoon.

Two trophy-less seasons hardly represents a drought, but however it is defined it is over.

Demarest's Chris Wright consistently attacked the net in his 6-2, 6-2 win at third singles.

“We were 8-10 last year, we were 8-10 the year before and this year is with a lot of the same kids. They came back, they worked on their games and they wanted it,” said Demarest head coach Dave Johnson. “We have played a lot of close matches this year and I think that has benefitted us. We played a lot of tight matches, we have played under pressure a lot. We lost to Pascack Valley in our first match of the season because it really made us aware of what we needed to work on and that this was not going to be an easy road.”

It was a relatively easy road for the first doubles tandem of Avi Huber and Sean Kim. They were off the court in less than an hour with a 6-0, 6-0 victory that got Demarest on the scoreboard quickly.

“We played a really good game from the baseline and my teammate Sean did not miss anything. He put everything away at net,” said Huber. “There was not one volley that got past us.”

The first doubles pair has an interesting dynamic as Huber is a senior who was a part of the program when it won the outright Group 2 state title at Mercer County Park in 2022. Kim is a promising freshman who has jumped right in and helped Demarest get back to its winning ways.

“I am a freshman. This is my first time playing [varsity tennis] and Avi has helped me so much,” said Kim. “I have played tennis for a long time because my Dad is a coach. I love to practice tennis, I love to play and that helped me to not be nervous in an important match.”

Neil Malhotra won at second singles for Demarest, which will play Haddonfield in the Group 2 semifinals on Thursday.

Next off the court was Chris Wright. Using a throwback serve-and-volley style, Wright hits big serves than get to the next at every opportunity, cutting angles and burying winners. He topped Alex Curukcu 6-2, 6-2 at third singles.

“All season my serve has been my best attribute and I use my forehand to keep him back and using it as an approach to get to net. That is really all I did,” said Wright, a lanky junior. “Because of my height I have a naturally big serve and over this offseason I really practiced by volleys a lot. It catches a lot of players off guard when I continually come to the net because most players just stay back.”

Demarest won the first set in all five matches and Wright’s win made it 2-0, but River Dell (17-2) was hanging in there. Jedrick Calimag took the second set and the third set tiebreaker lead against Piekny at first singles, Darsh Patel was forcing Demarest’s Neil Malhotra into long rallies at second singles and, after dropping the opening set 6-1 at second doubles, River Dell’s Daniel Jeong and Kyle Hwang were hanging in there in the second set against Harrison Davis and Arun Puttanich.

That second doubles match was being played in front of a decent-sized student section that River Dell brought north and it was the last to be concluded as the third set tiebreaker was extended still before Davis and Puttanich pulled out a 6-2, 2-6, 11-9 victory. Malhotra held off Patel 6-1, 6-4 as Demarest finished the sweep and earned its spot in Thursday’s Group 2 state semifinal where, as the No. 2 seed, it will play No. 3 Haddonfield.

“A lot of kudos to my guys. They played great, they played amazing today. It’s been a lot of fun with them,” said Johnson, whose team is now 13-2 on the season and has won 10 straight. “They are all great kids, so it has been an easy team to coach and I am happy for them that they get to experience this.”

John Bonsiewich (right) has more state sectional titles in his one year as an assistant tennis coach than in 30-plus years of coaching football.

Here are a couple of fun facts: Demarest has won four matches by a 3-2 score this season. Wright has won his match at third singles in all of them, proving his clutch bona fides…Johnson has now won six state sectional titles in the last eight years on the boys side and has won seven straight as the girls head coach, which means that Demarest tennis, with Johnson at the helm, has won 13 of the last 15 North 1, Group 2 titles awarded…John Bonsiewich has been an assistant football coach at Demarest for the last 28 years and was at Boonton for 9 years before that. Over that span he was a part of zero state sectional championships. Bonsiewich is in his first season as an assistant to Johnson and is a perfect 1 for 1 in tennis sectional titles…Johnson has only had four assistant coaches in his now-long tenure with Courtney VanSlooten (nee Moran), Mark Sterinsky and Jon Gray leading up to Bonsiewich, who is probably better than the last two on that list.

“Dave (Johnson) knows what he is doing. He is always in control of his emotions, he always has something working in the back of his head that turns out right,” said Bonsiewich. “After the kids lost to Pascack Valley [in the season opener] he had them right down what they did, what they could have done better and what they needed to work on. When we played them again he gave the paper right back to the kids to remind them and it worked. We split with them in the regular season and beat them in the semifinals here [in the state tournament].”

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