Man in the Stands

By Eliot Schickler

The MIAA in conjunction with Westboro High, poorly planned the Division 1 Boys Tennis State Championship match.

The match, in which South Sectional Champion Brookline High defeated Central Division Champion Westboro, 4-1 June 30 at the Wayside Athletic Club (WAC) in Marlboro, was an exercise in how not to plan a championship match.

Originally, the penultimate match was supposed to be played a day earlier at Westboro High’s tennis courts at 9 a.m., but because it was too hot out, the match was postponed. Not playing outdoors in the scorching heat was the right call, but how the match was rescheduled was wrong on many levels.

Normally, the match is scheduled for some time in the afternoon, but because it was supposed to be 100 degrees – or close to it on June 29, everyone thought 9 a.m. would be a perfect time to start to avoid the heat. Unfortunately, the calculations didn’t pan out, and the heat was already oppressive at the scheduled time.

The perfect alternative would have been to play at an indoor court later that morning. There were courts available, but Westboro was opposed to it because it felt tennis is meant to be played outdoors. Ideally, tennis supposed to be played outdoors, but in situations with oppressive heat or rain, playing indoors is the right thing to do, but the host school refused to play indoors on Tuesday, June 29.

Host Westboro made the decision to postpone it for a day and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) sided with the hosts. What the host school and MIAA didn’t realize was that the Warriors left the high school at 7:15 am on a bus at the expense of the Brookline taxpayers. The players’ parents had to wake them up by 6:30, feed them breakfast and get them to the bus on time, which isn’t an easy task since many high school students prefer to sleep in.

Playing indoors was not only an option which made sense, but four out of the six state championship matches took place indoors on June 29. There was no reason why the Warriors and Rangers couldn’t make it five indoor matches that day.

Many people have surmised that Westboro wanted to postpone the match because Brookline captain Noah Schwartz was available on the originally scheduled date, but left for Italy on a trip planned way in advance the next day. The southpaw Schwartz played third singles for the Warriors this spring and won all matches he played at that position.

This fall, Schwartz will attend the University of Miami, thus he missed the final high school match of his scholastic career and wasn’t there with his teammates to celebrate the team’s third straight state title and 60th straight victory.

Despite the weather forecast for the next day, Westboro and the MIAA scheduled the match for outdoors at 5 p.m. The match was slated to be played outdoors up until the last minute despite the oppressive heat when at 4:45 p.m., the match was moved indoors to WAC.

Because of the scheduling snafus and poor planning, the 5 p.m. match didn’t begin until 6:15. Because of Westboro’s intransience with the support of the MIAA, The Town of Brookline had to pay for two bus rides to Central Mass to play only one match.

One solution to soften the blow is for the MIAA and the Town of Westboro to reimburse Brookline’s treasury for the extra trip. It should have been obvious to both the MIAA and Westboro that the heat was bad both days and since the Warriors already made the trip at the taxpayers’ expense, then it shouldn’t have been a wasted trip.

I asked MIAA Boys Tennis Director Kate Breen what happened and she did not want to be quoted. I’m not blaming Breen personally for she was helpful in making it easy for me to do my job, but she’s a part of the committee that made the ridiculous decision to not play on June 29 and everyone who voted not to play that day need to be held accountable.

Using the oppressive heat is not an excuse. If four matches took place indoors June 29, then the Warriors and Rangers should have made it five.

Abolish the Coin Flip to Break Seeding Ties

The only reason Brookline was the away team was because it was the second-seed in the 14-team Division 1 South Sectional Tournament. Although Franklin High was 14-0 and the Warriors were 15-0, Franklin was the top seed because it won a coin flip with Brookline.

This is just as absurd as the scheduling issues for the Division 1 State title match. The Warriors have not lost a match since May 1, 2018 and was the two-time defending state champs before three-peating last week.

Brookline should have been seeded ahead of Franklin because of its stronger pedigree and it plays in the Bay State Conference. Franklin plays in the Hockomock League, which isn’t strong as the Bay State Conference. Proof of that was the top-seeded Panthers lost 3-2 to eighth-seeded Needham High of the Bay State Conference in the Division 1 quarterfinals. Needham finished in third place in the Bay State Conference and had the same record as fourth-place and seventh-seeded Newton North going into the tournament.

A solution would be that tennis teams from stronger conferences would get priority in tie-breaking scenarios. In tennis, it’s known which conferences are superior.

Westboro was the top-seed in the Central Division tournament, which is why the Rangers hosted the title match. Getting to the penultimate match wasn’t lengthy for Westboro, which was 13-0 in the regular season. The Rangers only played two opponents before beating Western Division Champ Amherst High, 5-0. Conversely, the Warriors played three teams in the South Sectional before beating North Division Champion Lexington High, 4-1 in the Eastern Mass. Championship showdown.

Those who are privy to Massachusetts high school tennis knew that the Warriors tilt with Lexington was for the de facto state title because Westboro didn’t have a chance against either school.

In sum, I owe the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) for saying it’s worse than the MIAA. After it bungled the state tennis tournament last week, it’s obvious that the MIAA is much worse than the CIAC.