For decades, the West Genesee boys tennis team, like all other large-school sides in Central New York, tried in vain to catch Fayetteville-Manlius, but could not do so.
All of that changed Wednesday afternoon, when the Wildcats, equally successful in singles and doubles, stunned the Hornets in a 4-3 classic.
Usually in doubles, James Plunkett and Matt Mannara went to singles and won their respective matches, Plunkett defeating David Fernando 7-6, 6-0 and Mannara topping Davin Woolridge 6-1, 6-1.
When Dan Good and Ben Paoli paired up in doubles to for their own 6-1, 6-1 win over Evan Bybee and Derek Hodge, WG was one point away, and got it from a comeback in another doubles match.
Ryan Joyce and Max Mekker lost the first set to F-M’s Ben Farber-McEntee and Andy Sun, but took over from there, winning the next two sets to prevail 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 and get the clinching point.
Before this, WG faced Liverpool, and in single-set matches to 10 games, the Wildcats nearly got a sweep of its own, but settled for a 6-1 win over the Warriors.
Noah Ruston, in singles, worked past Aiden Barbour 10-4, with Paoli getting a 10-4 win over Austin Huntress-Kennedy that made up for Joyce’s 10-8 defeat to Adam Ritter.
Mannara and Plunkett led a doubles sweep, handling Aaron Alejo and Eli Barbour 10-0 as Mekker and Stefan Atanasov got their own 10-0 shutout over Caleb Arnold and Brayden Cabrey.
Greg Fey and Ty Lisi paired up, handling Cole DenBleyker and Lance Loomis 10-3, while by that same margin it was David Puma and Michael White beating Matt Kane and Jonathan Kline.
Early last week, wet, cold weather caused another round of postponements of area high school tennis matches, but not everything got pushed back.
Westhill and Marcellus were able to have a head-to-head match last Monday indoors, with the Warriors maintaining its strong mark by defeating the Mustangs 4-1.
D.J. Caloia got Westhill going with a single-set, 8-0 shutout of Tyler Guerrina. Mike Ferrara won a tough 8-6 battle over Andrew Kammer, while Marcellus got on the board when Chris Barbaro edged Kyle Hagrman 9-8.
Moving to doubles, both matches were shutouts. Tom Chaddock and Noah Dematties paired up to beat Jackson Spanfelner and Tyler Szalach 8-0, with Jackson Bradley and Ryan Rolince beating Andrew Grashof and Nick Hahn by those same scores.
In a similar format on Tuesday, Westhill blanked Chittenango 5-0, where it got 8-0 shutouts by Caloia over Brian Schermerhorn and by Hagrman over David Seale as Bradley, also taking a turn in singles, beat Nate Smith 8-2.
Chaddock and Ferrara paired up, taking out Evan Edwards and Anthony Roberts in another 8-2 decision, while Dematties and Rolince topped Devon Hardy and Evan Smith by that same score.
Then Westhill had a showdown with Christian Brothers Academy last Wednesday, claiming both doubles points, yet still losing 3-2 to the Brothers.
Caloia and Chaddock paired to top Hunter Burton and Max Lewis 10-2, while Dematties and Hagrman handled Michael Hill and Matt Potenze 10-6. But CBA won all three singles matches, the closest of them Rolince’s 10-5 defeat to Dhruv Nanavati.
But Westhill did prevail 4-1 over Cazenovia in another set of single-set matches, these ones going to eight games. Mike Ferrara claimed an 8-6 decision over Aiden Kalteski as Caloia beat Traian Cherciu 8-4 and Dan Ferrara routed C.J. Monroe 8-1.
