By Butch Harmon
During the 1979 major league baseball season, the Pittsburgh Pirates adopted the song “We are Family” as their team motto on their way to winning the World Series.
For the past several years, the Midland Dow boys tennis team has built its program around the same family theme, an approach that has resulted in success and that paid off again this year, as the Chargers won the Division 2 state tennis championship at Hope College in Holland October 18-19.
Dow won consecutive title number five in impressive fashion, as it captured six of eight flights and had a finalist in a seventh flight. Dow totaled 37 points, 13 points ahead of second-place University of Detroit Jesuit.
“The five straight titles is not about anything the coach does,” coach Terry Schwartzkopf said. “We do it as a community. The players, the coaches, the parents, we are all invested in each other. These guys are back in my room after graduation. They are friends outside of school. They even have their own fantasy football league. The parents all know each other. That is the key to our success.”
Dow was dominant in both singles and doubles matches, winning three flights each in singles and in doubles.
Leading the Chargers in doubles play was the No. 1 team of Jason Chang and Vikram Shanker, who teamed up for Chang’s fourth and Shanker’s second state title. They defeated Timmy Hoffman and Marty Nagle from U of D Jesuit in two sets.
“We are just one big family,” Shanker said. “We train together the year round. Everyone turned it on this weekend. Our No. 3 doubles team didn’t have a perfect season, but they won an amazing match.”
That No. 3 doubles team was made up of Seamus Bartlett and Daniel Mango and came into the tournament seeded second. Bartlett and Mango progressed to the finals, where they defeated Forest Hills Northern’s Ryan Roach and Daiki Adachi in three sets.
“It was just incredible,” Mango said. “We won the first set, then we lost the second set. We got down in the third set, but then we pulled through at the end. Our coach just gave us words of encouragement. We knew what we had to do. We gave it our all and we did it.”
At No. 2 doubles, Dow’s team of Patrick Eschbach and Colin Angell rolled to victory with a 6-0, 6-1 win against Parneet Gogireddy and Alex Winks of Forest Hills Northern.
In singles action, senior Julian Guerra led the way as he earned the fourth state title of his career. Guerra won the No. 2 singles title in two sets against Thomas Sheeren of U of D Jesuit. Guerra won state titles at No. 4 singles as a freshman and sophomore, and last year he won the title at No. 3 singles.
At No. 4 singles, Dow sophomore Michael Szabo won his second straight state title. Szabo defeated Freddy Heegan of U of D Jesuit in two sets.
Taking part in his first state final was Dow freshman Varun Shanker at No. 3 singles. He defeated Will Christian of Forest Hills Northern in two sets to claim his crown.
“I can’t say enough about the Dow program,” Shanker said. “It was my dream to play tennis for Dow and help them win a state title. To win five in a row is awesome. To play for a program like Dow with such high expectations is a great experience.”