SALAMANCA — When discussing his 2019 Salamanca boys tennis team, one word kept coming up again and again for Rich Morton: “depth.”
While Warriors has six seniors out of its 14-player roster, its top three singles players to start the 2019 season are all underclassmen: two sophomores and a junior. But in settling his season-opening lineup with a play-off, Morton didn’t see an overwhelming separation from his top player, sophomore Neland Cummings, on down through the starting lineup.
After Cummings, Salamanca played Liam Long and Jarrett Pond at singles, Brandon Milanowski and Kendall Valvo at first doubles and Cameron Pratt and Luke Papke at second doubles in a 5-0 sweep of Cassadaga Valley.
“When we did our play-off ladder, Neland and Liam won all their matches, I think they lost to each other, but the rest of the guys, when they played each other, it was all close,” Morton said. “If I lose Jarrett and Brandon to golf, I could probably put in Braden Skinner or Kendall Valvo in with Tyler Coban. We should be fairly competitive as I go through this (lineup). I think our overall picture this year, when you look at our schedule, if I have all our kids together, I think we should be very competitive.”
Valvo stepped in at third singles, and Skinner, Coban and Jordan Nichols all played doubles in the team’s second match on Monday against Frewsburg. Depth paid off in a 3-2 Salamanca win, as Long won his match and the Warriors (2-0) swept doubles with pairings of Papke and Skinner, and Coban and Nichols.
With much of the team returning this season, Morton saw development across the lineup.
“I’m excited to have the kids that we have this year,” he said. “They’re all kids that were here before. If you look at the depth of what we have, depending on who’s not in trouble at school academically and I’ve got two kids that golf, on any given day, depending on who we have, if I have my full lineup, I think we’re going to be pretty strong. I don’t know if we can make a run at anything, but depth-wise, we’re very even across the board when I look at that. A lot of our kids are older.”
Skinner, Pratt, Papke, Nichols, Milanowski and Coban are Morton’s seniors, all of them previous letterwinners in the sport but Nichols.
“He’s got a lot of athletic ability, and just for his first year playing, he’s competitive,” Morton said of Nichols. “He’s not a real raw player who can’t figure it out. He moves well.”
Cummings and Long have both played for Morton since the seventh grade.
“They’re bigger now, they’re older, they’re stronger, they’re a little quicker,” Morton noted. “They’ve played long enough now to know the ins and outs of how to hit a lob shot, how to drop it, how to cross court, kind of figure things out during the match.
