Sports

Varhley Takes Helm of Girls Tennis

New coach wants to grow team that's already a state powerhouse

Matt Varhley was thrilled when Westfield High Athletic Director Ed Tranchina called him recently to ask if he’d be interested in becoming the Blue Devils’ girls tennis coach

“The athletic director asked if I could step in,’’ said Varhley, who replaces Frank Geiger. “I was thrilled to death. Everything seemed to fall into place. I got lucky.’

The 33-year-old Varhley, an eighth grade history teacher at grew up a baseball player. He played shortstop at Princeton Day School and Gettysburg College before becoming involved in tennis as a junior varsity coach at Montgomery High in Somerset County.

The Blue Devils have plenty of experience back from last year’s team which won its fourth straight Union County Tournament title, made the North 2 Group IV final and finished with an 11-2 dual meet record.

"The team had a good year, the singles player (Tara Criscuolo) qualified for the state team championship and so did our doubles’ team (Samantha Borr and Morgan Murphy),’’ said Varhley, who welcomed 36 youngsters for tryouts between the ninth at 12th grades.

The team will have a new player at the No. 1 singles position in freshman lefty Lexie Borr, who cruised through pre-season elimination.

“Her game skills set don’t need work, she has the stroke’’ said Varhley. “We’ll help her with a game plan. Like the kind of game she wants to play, deviating within that game and adapting to her opponent. When we embark on the schedule we’ll find a bump in the road whether it’s against Bridgewater, Montgomery or Millburn.

“She hits a solid ball,’’ he added. “She’s consistently deep and when I found out she was a lefty I almost fell over. She’s a special player.’’

Borr dominated senior Criscuolo in winning the top spot. Criscuolo is the No. 2 player and Union County champ Deborah Wu, a junior, will give the team a formidable player at No.3. Junior Samatha Borr, Lexi’s sister, and Murphy, a junior, return at first doubles. The second doubles team will be junior Melissa Marowski and junior Katherine McKinley. Borr and Murphy and Marowski and the graduated Amanda Simmons won the first and second doubles title respectively at the Union County tournament last year. Wu won the second singles title after being part of the county’s second doubles title team two years ago.

Borr, Criscuolo and Wu all won titles at the county tournament on Friday along with two winning doubles' teams. The Westfield team swept the tournament and now ranks among the top tennis teams in the state.

“There’s no mystery, we have a lot of depth,’’ Varhley. “It was hard to finalize our singles team and every doubles match was competitive. We have it. Now we want to build chemistry. We don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves.’’


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here