Once more, the Jamesville-DeWitt and Fayetteville-Manlius boys tennis teams will send its top players to Queens – five in all, four in doubles and one in singles.
That includes the Red Rams’ duo of Robert Dotterer and Peter Hatton, who steamrolled to victory in the Section III state qualifier, not dropping a set in any of their four matches.
Also, a second-place singles performance from Taran Judge and third-place effort in doubles from James DeSorbo and Vincent Sorrentino means that the Hornets will have a significant presence, too, when state titles are on the line.
The state qualifier, which started last Tuesday at SUNY-Cortland and concluded a day later at Syracuse University’s Skytop Courts, determined the three singles players and doubles teams to go to the USTA-Billie Jean King National Tennis Center for this weekend’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association championship tournament.
Dotterer and Hatton got going with a 6-0, 6-0 shutout over Oneida’s Aidan Hicks and Spencer Rich, the same team it beat in the sectional Class B final a week earlier. In the quarterfinals against F-M’s Ravi Dhawan and Vince Grasso, Dotterer and Hatton prevailed again in a 6-0, 6-1 romp, this after Dhawan and Grasso had won, 6-1, 6-0, over Gabe Aguilar and Andrew Lapp (Pulaski) in the first round.
The pivotal semifinal on Wednesday at SU pitted Dotterer and Hatton against the Skaneateles team of Matt Benson and Connor Jones. Already, Benson and Jones had stopped J-D’s Ishran Gajra and Alex Tso, who had beaten Geordi Geier and Joy Valencia (Hamilton) 6-0, 6-1 in the opening round before running into the Skaneateles pair and pushing hard through a close first set and a second-set romp before a 7-5, 1-6, 6-4 defeat.
Perhaps avenging what happened to Gajra and Tso, Dotterer and Hatton beat Benson and Jones, 6-0, 6-0, and with a state tournament berth locked up, the J-D duo struck again in the finals, not requiring much time to beat Cooperstown’s Tyler Bertram and Pierce Snyder 6-1, 6-1.
DeSorbo and Sorrentino met CBA’s Tommy Daviau and Geoff Parkes in the round of 16 after Daviau and Parkes beat Nick Barna and Orson Sproule (Cazenovia) 6-2, 6-2 in the first round.
Rested and ready to go, DeSorbo and Sorrentino got past that round, 6-4, 6-1, and then won a quarterfinal over Baldwinsville’s Scott Ferrari and Mason Soeder, though it took three sets to pull out a 6-4, 4-6, 6-1 decision.
Now, if they beat Bertram and Snyder in the semifinals, a state tournament berth was set –but it wasn’t close, each set seeing Bertram and Snyder humble DeSorbo and Sorrentino by 6-2 margins.
So it all rode on a third-place match against Benson and Jones, the team Dotterer and Hatton just beat, and F-M’s most experienced pair came up big, winning in straight sets 6-2, 6-3.
Judge beat two other local players just to reach the semifinals. First, he rolled past Christian Brothers Academy’s Jameson Keppeler 6-0, 6-1, and then topped Jamesville-DeWitt’s Tyler Glowaki in a tough 6-4, 6-4 match after Glowaki had beaten Cooperstown’s John Kelley 6-3, 6-3 in the round of 16 and, before that, swept Holland Patent’s Chris Gaige 6-2, 6-2.
A win in the semifinals against Auburn’s Scott Minnoe would mean an automatic state tournament berth. Having faced Minnoe before this season, Judge knew what to expect, and once he survived a tough first set 7-5, he won the second set 6-1 to reach the final.
That title match against Cazenovia’s Nate Romig was not until Wednesday, but even with 24 hours to regroup, Judge never got going against Romig, taking a 6-3, 6-1 defeat.
CBA’s Dean Vlassis would also make a deep run. Having seen F-M’s Tom Miro beat Chris Mazza (Sauquoit Valley) 6-3, 6-1 in the opening round, Vlassis then swept Miro 6-1, 6-4, advancing to the quarterfinals, where he handled Onondaga’s Ryan Cass 6-1, 6-4.
Romig, who had already beaten F-M’s Michael Miller 6-1, 6-1 in the round of 16, proved too good for Vlassis in the semifinals in a 6-3, 6-2 decision, so Vlassis had to beat Minnoe in the third-place match with the last state tournament berth on the line. He couldn’t pull it off, Vlassis falling to Minnoe 6-2, 6-3.
