Covenant blanks VES in semis

The Covenant School’s boys tennis team will make its second consecutive trip to the VIS Division II finals on Saturday, as the Eagles stormed past Virginia Episcopal for the fourth time this season on Thursday, 9-0.
The Eagles won the first five singles matches convincingly, dropping just seven games out of 57. Seniors Brad Tulenko and Chris Kochard cruised 10-1 and 10-0, respectively, to lead the way.
In the No. 1 match, Steven Cho rallied to defeat the Bishops’ Marsh Baker, 11-9 to sweep singles. Baker defeated Cho in their first two meetings this season, and the Covenant standout, who jumped from the team’s No. 5 last year to No. 1, knew that it was not going to be easy to defeat him for the second straight time.
“He’s a great player,” Cho said, “and it was a really tough match. I struggled a little at first but I pulled it off.”
Covenant’s Dave Dahnert, in his first season as head coach after serving as an assistant the previous two seasons, knows that playing year-round has greatly increased the odds of his team bringing home a state title this weekend.
“These seniors have really worked hard off-season, and then the younger guys knew that the bar was set very high for them,” Dahnert said. “They had to pick up their games all summer, fall and winter, and I think we’re just clicking on all cylinders right now and the team has really come together at the perfect time.”
The Eagles fell in last year’s state final to Norfolk Collegiate, 5-4, which proved to be their only loss on the season. Tulenko and Kochard remember how close they got a year ago, and hope to change their fortunes Saturday and help build a legacy for future Covenant tennis teams.
“I definitely think we have a better shot this year,” Tulenko said. “I know last year after we lost, we all know we could’ve won and everyone on the team went on and worked in the offseason and got so much better, and we’re ready to get it this year.”
Tulenko will play at Division III Methodist next year and remembers when Covenant barely had enough players to assemble a team when he was younger. He wants to leave school knowing that he was a founding member of a team that will compete for years to come.
“I think we can leave something that wasn’t there for us,” he said, “a legacy of Covenant tennis that they can strive to live up to. We pushed ourselves to try and create something every year, and we’ve definitely helped the younger kids by giving them something to shoot for.”
Kochard echoed Tulenko’s statements regarding the underclassmen, and offered his advice on how they can continue the winning tradition that he, Tulenko and Gray Delany helped build since they started playing in eighth grade.
“The ethic of hard work,” said Kochard. “Always work hard and think, play as well as you can and play hard and try not to outburst on the tennis court,” he chuckled.
Dahnert discussed how the seniors are not at all afraid or ashamed to help out their younger counterparts, as the program now has a fully functioning varsity and junior varsity squad.
“[The seniors] will pick up and play with anybody,” he said. “They’ll hit with an eighth-grader, and sometimes you’ll have an older player that feels like, ‘oh, he’s just an eighth-grader or a seventh-grader,’ but these guys have taken everybody in and know that they’re going to be leaving behind a strong program.”
Cho is grateful for what the seniors have done for the program and is confident knowing that he holds the torch going into next season as a team leader.
“Chris and Brad and Gray are absolutely amazing,” he said, “and they’ve definitely contributed a lot and we’re going to miss them so much but we’re still going to play our best next year.”
Covenant (19-3) will face the Hampton Roads Academy-Norfolk Collegiate winner on Saturday at 11 a.m.