MANCHESTER – He wanted to make up for last year. He wanted to live up to his No. 1 seed. He wanted to win it for his coach.
It was a load of expectations on Justin Toler’s shoulders, and the Concord senior had to bear the weight two extra days when the boys’ singles semifinals and finals were postponed from Tuesday to Thursday. But in the end, Toler got everything he wanted.
Using a nasty kick serve, a near-flawless overhead and a volley touch that doesn’t seem fair, No. 1 Toler earned the boys’ singles championship with a 6-4, 6-2 finals win against sixth-seeded Souhegan freshman Matt Lapsley.
“I wanted to do this all four years I played, so I’m stoked,” Toler said. “Getting to the finals in all three last year – team, singes and doubles – but only winning doubles (with Thomas Bengtson), made me want to come back and give it some more.”
Toler won the first set of last year’s final before falling to Lebanon’s Max Reed in a 10-point tiebreaker (used instead of a third set), 3-6, 6-4, 10-4. It was a painful loss for Toler, but he used that experience on Thursday to keep his cool and fuel his fire.
“I had less nerves this time, and last year gave me some motivation to play differently,” Toler said. “Last year, I won the first set and then I changed my tactics and ended up losing. This year, I had more confidence in my game knowing that I can make it this far, that I deserve to make it this far.”
Last year, he also told Concord Coach Dave Page that he would win it for Page so the coach could have a singles champion on “the board,” the sign at Concord’s Memorial Field that lists all of the Crimson Tide’s team, singles and doubles champions. Toler apologized to Page (now in his 12th year as the Tide’s head coach) after losing last year, promised to win it for him this year and then made good on that promise, becoming Concord’s first singles champ since Blake Wyman in 2001.
And during Thursday’s final changeover, just before Toler served out the match, he walked over to the fence and said to Page, “This is for you, coach.”
“It was kind of tough for me to keep it together at that point, to be honest with you,” Page said. “I’ve known Justin since he was a little kid and to see him winning a state title as a senior, it doesn’t get any better than that.”
Toler started his day with a 6-3, 6-1 win over No. 4 Aaron Diamond of Moultonborough. Toler broke Diamond early to take a 3-1 lead and held serve from there to take the first set. He charged the net relentlessly, using underspin to attack Diamond’s backhand and a devastating overhead to win points with authority, a combination that also led to the easy second-set win.
Toler’s attacking, volley-based strategy also made sense given the extremely windy conditions at The Derryfield School. And with the notoriously windy Memorial Field courts as his home, Toler knows all about playing in blustery weather.
“The wind played a big role, but four years of playing at Memorial kind of set me up perfectly for this scenario,” Toler said.
The wind kept blowing in the finals, and Toler kept to his underspinning and attacking game plan against Lapsley, who beat No. 7 Zach Gould of Bedford in the other semifinal, 7-6 (7-1), 6-1.
“(Lapsley) is a really good player, he’s very consistent,” Toler said. “My game revolves around transitioning and volleying and overheads, so I knew that for me, getting in a ground-stroke rally game against a consistent base liner, that’s not a good plan.”
Toler took advantage of some nervous Lapsley errors to break the Souhegan freshman in the first game of the final. The Concord senior took that opening and ran with it, holding serve the rest of the way for a 6-4 first-set win that ended when he held at love with four straight unreturned serves that kicked up near Lapsley’s head.
Toler jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second set and Lapsley was visibly frustrated. But Toler lost a bit of focus at that point and the match turned sloppy as the two traded four straight breaks. When it came time to win, however, Toler once again held at love. He used a drop shot and lob combination, a lob and overhead 1-2, and, finally and fittingly, two straight serve-and-volley points to win the title.
“I think he only missed one overhead all day, and he volleyed superbly as well. And he kept his head and didn’t let the bad patches get him down. He stayed mentally tough and we’ve been trying to do that for four years and he put it all together,” Page said. “We focus first and foremost on the team tournament, but for an individual player that has put in so many hours ,to see that be rewarded at the highest level is a terrific feeling. I’m very happy for Justin and for (his father and Concord assistant coach) Todd, who has been a huge part of all this.”