Friends Academy Wins Nassau County Small School Championship

In the first-ever installment of the Nassau County Small School Championship, Friends Academy and Cold Spring Harbor battled it out with a county title on the line at Eisenhower Park on Wednesday afternoon.

In a tightly-contested final, it was the Quakers of Friends Academy who claimed the title through a 5-0 victory over the Seahawks of Cold Spring Harbor, in a match that featured three singles and two doubles flights.

“I am very excited,” said Friends head coach Owen Kassimir. “At the beginning of the season, I knew we had a strong team. We got off to a slow start as we were missing some of our top players early on, but we picked it up as the season went on, and I was happy with the progress the team showed.

Cold Spring Harbor is a great team, and they beat us twice during the regular season, so I knew today was going to be tough. I’m happy we prevailed.”

The 2021 Nassau County Small School Runner-Up: Cold Spring Harbor 

At first singles, Isabella Sha of Friends Academy and Nicolette Loeffler of Cold Spring Harbor played in a rematch of the Individual County Singles final from this past weekend. Sha came away victorious on Wednesday, winning 6-2, 6-1 to put Friends ahead early.

Teah Login then notched a 7-5, 6-2 victory at third singles, and Skylar Cohen clinched her team’s county title with a 6-2, 6-4 win at second singles.

“I lost to her last time, so I came out today and knew what I had to do to change up my game, and it worked out,” said Cohen. “When I saw the other two matches finish and knew we had one, I did get a bit nervous. But it just motivated me to want to win even more.”

The scoring was rounded out by a 6-0, 4-6, 6-0 victory by Taylor Overstrom & Rachel Na at first doubles, and a 4-6, 6-2, 6-0 second doubles win by Eva Sun & Erica Na.

Friends Academy will now play the winner of the Suffolk County Small School Championship for a Long Island title.

In the Large School semifinals in Nassau, the Syosset Braves and Port Washington Vikings advanced in their respective matches to set up a final between the top two seeds on Friday.

Port Washington’s Katie Kors paired with Phoebe Levitsky to win a key match at second doubles

Port Washington knocked off Manhasset 5-2, led by a key 6-2, 6-2 victory by Evie Loewy at third singles.

For Syosset, Sara Gao & Olivia Tiegerman won 6-0, 6-3 at second doubles to clinch their teams 6-1 win over Roslyn.

Port Washington and Syosset will play for the Large School Championship at Eisenhower Park on Friday afternoon.