ONONDAGA COUNTY – Finally getting a full week of sunshine and perfect playing conditions, the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool boys tennis teams would be frequently on the court.
And no match for the Northstars meant more than last Wednesday’s showdown with Baldwinsville, who gave C-NS its lone defeat of the regular season back on April 24.
The rematch would go quite different, though, as C-NS took advantage of a forfeit in doubles and did just enough elsewhere to edge the Bees 4-3.
Wyatt Dupell set the tone in first singles, topping Mason Doan 6-4, 6-1, with Brady Petranchuk getting past Zach Treichler 6-4, 6-4 to make up for Brandon Nguyen’s 6-1, 6-3 defeat to Aidan DeLaney.
Moving to doubles, Mike Azzarello and Nathan Smith claimed that forfeit, but the teams of Peter Gill-Andrew George and Mike DeGroat-Alex Cao each lost in two sets.
That left it up to Matt Jordan and Ryan Kiel, who won the fist set 7-5 over Andrew Jung and Nick Helbig and, after absorbing a 6-4 loss in the second set, dominated the third set 6-0 to get the clinching point.
C-NS faced Fulton last Tuesday and prevailed by a 5-1 margin, helped by a couple of forfeits in singles, but also getting Drew Errante on the court as he defeated Jordan Thurlow 6-4, 6-1.
In the pair of contested doubles matches, Kali VanLuven and Ryan Fehlman worked past Vincent Salerno and Alan Craig 6-2, 6-4, with Jackson Dufort and J.J. Johnson handling Felix Robinson and Max Scipone 6-0, 6-0.
All of this led C-NS to a showdown Thursday against unbeaten Fayetteville-Manlius, and the Northstars were unable to get on the board in a 7-0 defeat to the first-place Hornets.
Nguyen nearly grabbed the first set from Colin Byer, but lost 7-5, 6-0 as Lukasik and VanLuven also lost in singles in two sets.
Mai and Joe DeGroat had a similar experience, losing their own 7-5, 6-0 decision to John Gilligan and Agniva Chaudhiri in the closest of the four doubles matches.
Recovering on Saturday, C-NS blanked East Syracuse Minoa 7-0. Mai played singles and shut out Aaron Martin 6-0, 6-0 to match wins by Petranchuk and Nguyen while, in doubles, the teams of Jordan-Kiel, Gill-George, Joe DeGroat-Mike DeGroat and Cao-VanLuven all had straight-set wins, too.
When up against F-M last Tuesday, Liverpool lost 6-1, salvaging a point in first singles when Justin Barrett swept past Cameron Lukasik 6-1, 6-3.
Dan Haynes fell to Andrew Fitts 6-2, 6-2, with Andrew Caimano taking a 6-0, 6-0 defeat to Byer. Of the four doubles matches, only Kasey Maher and Raury Bienkowski got close to winning a set, yet still fell to Xavier Sui and Will Ferguson 6-3, 6-4.
