By: Laura Chapman
Assistant Sports Information Director
chapmal@juniata.edu • juniatasports.net
HUNTINGDON, Pa. – At the start of the 2013-14 men's tennis season, Juniata College was picked to finish second by the Landmark Conference preseason poll. While the Eagles finished as runners up in the league tournament, Juniata confounded even the lofty expectations set for them. The Eagles stormed though the Landmark season with a perfect 7-0 record. From the first league win to the last Juniata was No. 1 in the conference this year. The Eagles finished the regular season 16-1 in dual match play with the only loss coming at the hands of Gettysburg College on the final day. The 17 total wins on the year eclipsed the record for wins in a single season set by the 2012-13 team a year ago.
Freshman standout Dean Polisena (Adelaide, Australia/Saint Ignatius) was named Landmark Rookie and Player of the Year and head coach Jason Cohen and his staff earned Coach of the Year honors. Joining Polisena as a First-Team All-Landmark member was senior Justin Wisniewski (Moorestown, N.J./Moorestown), who posted an undefeated record in the regular season topping all league opponents.
Wisniewski and sophomore Bryan Gregory (Glenn Mills, Pa./Garnett Valley) were named to the conference second-team for their doubles play, with Gregory also earning second-team honors in singles, and senior Elliott Perow (Huntingdon, Pa./Huntingdon) earned back-to-back second-team honors. Sophomore Logan Moore (Chadds Ford, Pa./Unionville) was one of four Eagles, along with Perow, Polisena, and Wisniewski, to earn Landmark Player of the Week recognition and posted a 20-win season going 17-0 at No. 5 singles.
"Some of the pieces that came together for the team this year were unknowns earlier in the year. Logan came back after not playing last year and Dean I had only seen play on film so you don't know exactly how good he is going to be," said Cohen. "Some of those unknown pieces definitely exceeded expectations. Logan was unbeatable at No. 5 singles so that was a huge help. Dean only lost two or three times at one singles. Those are pieces where there was potential doubt going into our season that were eventually the best parts of our team."
Wisniewski and Perow both posted career-highs in singles wins during their senior campaigns.
"Both Elliott and Justin did great with good singles records. When you have players that for the most part have been playing one and two for three years playing two, three, and four – they're used to playing players who are of a higher level – they're going to have good results," said Cohen. "That's something great for your team when you can move players down because you're recruiting better players. You're team is going to get better very quickly. They were able to take those positions and win a lot and that was very helpful for the team."
At No. 3 doubles, Perow and sophomore Mike Lifshitz (Worcester, Mass./Worcester Academy) posted the highest winning percentage on the year finishing with just two losses at 16-2 overall.
"Elliott and Mike played so well at three doubles because they were a very aggressive team at the net. They were relentless coming to the net and moving forward and putting pressure on their opponents," said Cohen. "With that kind of high pressure aggressive good strategy doubles, matches were over quickly because they were putting volleys away. They made a good team there especially with Elliott's leadership helping Mike as a sophomore – they balanced each other out pretty well."
Top 5 Moments
ITA Regionals: Perow and Polisena defeat Haverford in first round of championship doubles
Competing in the championship doubles draw of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) regional tournament, Perow and Polisena pulled out an 8-4 win over Haverford for Juniata's first ever championship draw win.
"That was a nice win for them. They beat what at the time was Haverford's No. 1 team – they were two doubles starters for Haverford all year. They are ranked seven or eight in the region," explained Cohen. "That was a big win. I'm sure everyone that looked at the draw didn't know who Juniata was and assumed Haverford would win that match so that was good for them to get that win. They won pretty convincingly 8-4."
March 11, 2014: Juniata defeats Nazareth 8-1
After opening the dual match season two days earlier with a 9-0 win over Westminster, the Eagles took on Nazareth College in Hilton Head, S.C. Juniata came away with the dominating 8-1 win.
"It was a relatively easy win and that's a match that I expected us to be tested in. Looking at the results from last year I thought that would be a big test for us. Even watching them warm up I thought it would be a good match. Then we beat them pretty convincingly," said Cohen. "That was a moment when I realized we were better than I thought we were. That was the first match I'd really seen Dean play a whole competitive match. He started slow and then all of a sudden turned it on and won something like 12 straight games."
March 15, 2014: Juniata earns first Landmark win of the season 6-3 over Catholic
After a perfect 4-0 week on spring break, the Eagles traveled to Washington, D.C. where they earned their first Landmark win of the year, 6-3, over preseason-No. 1 Catholic University of America. Previously Juniata had been 1-5 in conference play against the Cardinals.
"Dean's match was back-and-forth the whole time. That's a team that we haven't really beaten. The guys were all really pumped up. Catholic was voted ahead of us in the preseason poll and the guys wanted to prove everyone wrong. We came out and played pretty well. That was the most excited bus ride after the match I've ever seen," said Cohen.
April 2, 2014: Juniata claims six-hour match, 5-4-, over Moravian
The Eagles hosted Moravian College in a mid-week league matchup on Raffensperger Tennis Courts and the two teams dueled for over six hours before Lifshitz claimed the victory for Juniata with a three-set win at No. 5 singles.
"It was a really close match. We didn't play our best that day. We were up 4-3 with two matches left. Mike was down in one and Logan was tied in the other. Logan ended up losing and it came down to Mike. He lost the first set pretty badly and then squeaked out the second set. Then they had to move [from the upper courts to the lower courts] to finish under the lights and there was a pretty good crowd," said Cohen. "Mike then beat the guy pretty bad in the third set for the win. I think that was the first match where we played at home and there were actually people coming to watch. The guys were all excited that they got that win. That kept us on pace because they wanted to be the No. 1 seed and go undefeated."
April 5, 2014: Juniata defeats Scranton in Scranton
The Eagles traveled to Scranton, Pennsylvania to take on The University of Scranton. The Royals had never lost to Juniata in Landmark play. That day the Eagles earned their fourth league win and first over Scranton taking the match 6-3.
"That was the worst day to play tennis all year. The weather was horrible," said Cohen. "That's one of the only matches all year where Dean lost both singles and doubles. The team responded really well. Just because the player that normally wins didn't, really didn't mean anything to them. They responded and came through with a win even when the best player wasn't playing the best."
Bonus April 23, 2014: Juniata defeats Moravian for first-ever playoff win
As the No. 1 seed in the tournament, the Eagles hosted Moravian in the first round and came away with the teams' first postseason victory, 5-1.
"That was our first playoff win in school history. We beat Moravian, who we barely beat before, and beat them pretty good. It was 5-1 and Bryan was up a set when we stopped his match and Mike was up a set. It could have been 7-2 or 8-1 if we had played it out and that's to a team that we barely beat 5-4 earlier in the season. I think that showed the improvement the guys made throughout the year," said Cohen.
While the team ultimately came up one match short of the championship goal, the 2013-14 Juniata tennis team did something no other team has done in program history – they set a new record for wins in a singles season, set a new Landmark record for wins in a single season, they earned the first regular season title and No. 1 tournament seed and earned the programs' first postseason win advancing to the teams' first ever championship match. They have set a new level for Juniata tennis.
"All the accolades are nice and they show that the team worked hard and earned everything. Nothing of this magnitude has been done at Juniata before. The guys all understand what happened and that we put together a good season and beat some good teams," said Cohen. "They'll still be bitter about the way that it ended, but they can look past that to see that they did a lot of things correctly. They gave themselves a chance to win the conference. We put ourselves in a good position to win we just weren't able to win that one extra match in the final. If we do the things we did this year only slightly better then things will fall our way next year."
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