Cardozo reclaims throne

Howie Arons is not one for subtlety. After falling short the last two seasons, the energetic Cardozo coach, in his 31st season, had one mission for his Judges this spring: Win it all. No division title, no finals berth would be enough.
Apparently, that’s what winning 15 straight times, as Cardozo did from 1987-2002, does to a coach. “This is all that matters,” he said before the final. “This is the longest dry spell I’ve had.”
“He always tells us that we’re the team to beat,” second singles Steven Nieman said. “It’s our championship to win. That’s the mindset we had throughout the year.”
That mindset is now a reality. Cardozo got their first PSAL boys ‘A’ title since 2004, taking out Beacon, 3-2, the very team that knocked them out in the semifinals last May, Monday afternoon at Queens College.
Nieman and Jonathan Raude won in singles play, and the second doubles pair of Djonvi Santos and Kevin Chu clinched the Judges’ 19th crown with a 6-3, 7-5 triumph over Khari Linton and Pascal Louis.
“Just getting to the finals wasn’t good enough this year,” Arons said. “Other years I would say it was good enough. I wanted this one, I swear to you, as much as any of the other ones I’ve had. I think I had the team. We were better.”
“It’s very sweet.”
The result was very much in doubt until Chu and Santos completed their straight set victory. Jai Yoon lost in first singles and Cardozo was trailing a set and a break in first doubles. “It was up to us,” said Santos, a three-year starter.
The two said they felt pressure even before the match started. It only intensified as the match went on, and it became evident that second doubles would decide the championship. As Arons yelled out instructions, Santos relaxed his longtime friend Chu, in his first year as a starter, reassuring him to “calm down” and “play his game.”
“I thought it was really important,” Chu, a Flushing native, said of the match’s magnitude, “but I wasn’t thinking about it. … I wanted to take it point by point.”
He later added, “I was finally able to prove myself.”
So were the Judges, dogged by postseason failure in years past. Besides winning it all in 2004, they lost, 3-2, in the finals twice and once in the semifinals. Each year, victory was within grasp only to elude them. This time, the Judges answered the bell.
“To know that now we’re sitting on top again,” Nieman said, “to be compared to the past teams with confidence, is really something special.”