Chartiers Valley’s Brendan Hallisey chasing another WPIAL gold medal

By: Nathan Breisinger
Sunday, April 21, 2024 | 11:01 AM

Instead of staying on the prototypical path of competitive team sports a child takes when growing up, Brendan Hallisey decided he wanted something more extreme.

Doing simple flips in his backyard gave way to a new favorite activity, parkour.

As Hallisey’s passion for parkour grew, he started taking lessons at Gymsport in Bridgeville.

With more and more running, flips and jumps, Hallisey enjoyed the activity, but his knees didn’t.

One day in the fifth grade, Hallisey made a stop at the doctor’s office for some pain in his knee that became a little bothersome.

The doctors found something that would bring an end to his parkour days.

“I was doing a bunch of flips and different high impact jumps and it eventually caused a part of my bone in my knee to cut my blood circulation off. I was on crutches for three, almost four, months and I couldn’t do anything at all,” Hallisey said.

What the doctors found was an Osteochondral Defect Lesion, which tore part of the cartilage covering the bone in his knee. With that, Hallisey knew he had to be done with the extreme.

“I realized I could never get back into it because I would get injured again. I played tennis a little bit when I was younger before then, but I figured I might as well pick it up again after my injury because it seemed like a good transition sport. I really enjoyed it, and it took off from there.”

After Hallisey returned to the tennis courts, he continued to work at his craft and through his first two years of high school, developed skills that led to his junior season.

With Hallisey paired up with Liam Pedersen, the doubles duo made a run at the WPIAL Class 2A championships and came away as the first tennis champions in Chartiers Valley history.

“In all the years coaching, that was one of my favorite moments, to watch them take down doubles team after doubles team and their excitement,” Colts coach Robert Mack said. “They were just on fire. The communication between the two worked for them. There wasn’t a whole lot of experience between the two of them. To see how they ran through the other doubles team was great.”

Despite being paired together only a few weeks before their improbable run, Hallisey and Pedersen balanced each other perfectly.

“Although we didn’t get as much playing time together as we would’ve liked, it was still really easy to focus on what we were good at and use in combination,” Hallisey said. “He had a really good backhand, I was a better forehand, so we were able to use that combination together to manipulate points to our liking.”

Now in his senior season, after suiting up as the starting goalie for the Chartiers Valley boys soccer team in the fall, Hallisey is looking to end his career not just with another gold medal, but with lasting memories.

“I want some of the younger kids on the team to see that tennis can be really fun and super rewarding. I want to have fun with it. I want to leave Chartiers Valley with a lot of memories,” he said.

After qualifying for the WPIAL singles tournament but losing in the first round, Hallisey now shifts his focus to the doubles portion of the season with a new partner.

Hallisey and others talked their good friend Sakesh Andhavarapu into playing his senior season, after spending two years away from tennis, on the track.

“He’s one of my really good friends outside of tennis,” Hallisey said. “We played a little bit of doubles freshman year. We work pretty well together. You can tell he hasn’t played in a couple of years, but he’s still really good for not focusing on it much. I think we should end up being a really good team. He has his advantages, and I have mine.

For Mack, he’s hoping the doubles duo can catch fire just as Hallisey and Pedersen did last season.

“Nobody knows Sakesh, so I hope they surprise a lot of people,” Mack said. “Anything’s possible. I’ve tried to prepare them the best I could.”

Even with a WPIAL title to defend, Hallisey will be more relaxed than ever and just having fun.

“There is no real pressure. We have a good understanding of how far we could get,” he said.

Tags: Chartiers Valley