The Liberty Hurricanes achieved what most teams could only wish for after taking second place to Parkland (by just one point) without four of their starters in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference Boys Tennis Championships on April 20 at Freedom High School.

“To be able to have different guys work themselves in, and as a team, finish second in the tournament is the accomplishment,” said Liberty coach Chris Conrad. “We were even one man down and started the tournament forfeiting a spot (three singles), and so to be able to be that competitive with Freedom, Parkland, and Nazareth, who also had a great tournament... I want to compliment Nazareth because Nazareth’s doubles were fantastic the entire tournament.”

Conrad had notice of Liberty’s band trip that would coincide with the EPC tournament, so the head coach took that time to evaluate which players would become the moving parts to fill the starters’ voids.

“We had to forfeit third singles because of the band trip,” Conrad explained. “Caden (Vermuelen) doesn’t generally play. Neither does Finn (Brown) or Connor (Ohl) in my starting lineup. They have played in varsity matches this season. They just have not played as much as my starters, so we’re all out of position because of the band trip.”

In the last match to finish in last Thursday’s tournament, Liberty’s four doubles team of Matt Alter and Vermuelen emerged with a silver medal after their 8-10 match against Parkland’s Ryan Wu and Ojas Karandikar.

“Coming in, I felt pretty confident, and I trusted [Caden],” Alter said. “We worked a lot at practice, so I was feeling pretty good. It paid off for the most part. We got in our own heads closer to the end of the game. I stopped hitting good balls, and he stopped hitting good balls, and we killed ourselves more than they did anything to us.”

Earlier in the day, the pair defeated Emmaus’s Huy Huynh and Abdoul Aidara, 8-4, and Nazareth’s Jordan Wagner and Harrison Hoch, 10-7.

“[Coach Conrad] said to keep it deep and finish at the net,” said Vermuelen. “I kind of expected to be in the championship match, to be honest, so I’m pretty disappointed we didn’t get the win.”

Ohl and Brown also won silver medals after their 6-10 match against Parkland’s Noah Oxferld and Tommy Gilchrist at three doubles.

“It feels pretty great,” said Brown. “I’m proud of what we have accomplished even though we really weren’t supposed to be here. I was definitely doing pretty good at the net. Connor’s serves were getting in most of the time, and they were fast, and he also played pretty well at the net.”

The Hurricane duo won their first match of the day against Emmaus’s Sarvesh Senguttuvan and Quaid Peatiwala, 8-2, and their second match against Allentown Central Catholic’s Ian Abedessa and Matt Keenan, 10-7.

“With not a lot of playing time in the season, I was pretty excited to just be able to play in the tournament,” said Ohl. “We started off going back and forth (with Central), and then they took the lead, 7-4, and then Finn and I decided to take a break and came back and didn’t lose a point from there. I thought we had a good run today, and we’ll be back for the next two years for me and three years for Finn.”

At the end of the tournament, Liberty was awarded the EPC trophy for winning the regular season championship with a conference record of 15-0.

“These guys are dedicated to what they do in order to focus on growth, getting better every time they step on the court no matter the outcome, so that’s key,” said Conrad. “It’s not everyone who started the whole season, so that’s really an accomplishment.”