New-look Sidwell Friends boys’ tennis wins fourth-straight MAC title

As the Quakers’ other matches finished and the score remained tied, Sedwick worked with freshman partner Chase Hunter to claw into the lead after falling behind in the second set. Hunter, who was dealing with limited mobility after a back injury at the start of the season, could only serve underhand, but the duo made up for it with relentless volleys at the net and prevailed to push Sidwell to a 4-3 victory in Washington.

“I was looking at what was happening; I was like, ‘We might have to be the clincher; we’re going to have to be ready for it,’ ” Sedwick said. “I was a little nervous those first couple of games … but getting the team involved and just being loud really picked up the pace and let the nerves just go away.”

With the teams lined up on opposite sides of the neighboring court and alternating between silence and cheers, Sedwick and Hunter took a one-game lead midway through that second set. Eager to close out the match, Sedwick called out to his team for a boost of energy before slamming home a volley to clinch the title with a 6-4, 7-5 win over Potomac School’s Cooper Schirmeier and Henry Stein.

Sidwell (16-4) secured its fourth straight MAC title — this time with a lineup in which five of its top six players are freshmen or transfers who are new to the team.

The Quakers had a similarly close win against Potomac (12-5) in the regular season finale last week, with four matches going to tiebreakers. Heading into Saturday, they knew they were in for a fight and prepared accordingly.

“We were on the brink again today,” Sidwell Coach Logan West said. “We wouldn’t have been able to pull through like we did today if we didn’t have that experience last week, because they all believed, they knew we’d been there before and they just dug deep and found that grit.”

A turning point for the Quakers came when sophomore Aneesh Mirmira beat the Panthers’ Alex Zhou at No. 3 singles after a first set that lasted nearly two hours. Mirmira, a Whitman transfer, finally won a 10-8 set tiebreaker, and he used that boost to win the match and pave the way for his team.

“When I got that first set, it really took a load off,” Mirmira said. “[In past years,] I had heard that Sidwell dominates the MAC, so I said, ‘I got to get a piece of this.’ ”