For their second appearance in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association tournament, the Skaneateles boys tennis doubles team of Ryan Sayko and Ethan Wilcox made it quite exciting.
Topping their 2011 work, Saykow and Wilcox won a round at the USTA-Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City and nearly made it all the way to the championship quarterfinals.
Tournament play in Queens began on Thursday with the opening round. Sayko and Wilcox met Dan Hackford and Mike Perry (Binghamton Seton Catholic) and went back and forth, winning the first set 6-3 but dropping the second set by that same margin. In the third set, Sayko and Wilcox won in another 6-3 decision.
Advancing to the round of 16, Sayko and Wilcox took on John Sipala and Cooper Lacetera (Westhampton), and it was another classic. After losing the first set 6-3, Sayko and Wilcox were pushed to a second-half tie-breaker, but pulled it out 7-3.
The third set proved even longer, going to another tiebreaker – but this time, Sipala and Lacetera were triumphant, 9-7, to pull out a 6-3, 6-7, 7-6 decision that thwarted Sayko and Wilcox’s state title dreams.
Elsewhere, the Stone brothers (Parker and Branden) from East Syracuse-Minoa lost in the round of 16, and the Boleslav brothers (Brent and Garrett) from West Genesee fell in the consolation bracket quarterfinals. Dan Morgan and Doug Kaplan (Amherst) won the state doubles championship.
In singles, CBA’s Matt Nardella, a semifinalist one year ago, was upset in the second round of singles play, but bounced back to win his consolation bracket, beating Southampton’s Jeremy Dubin 6-3, 7-6. Cold Spring Harbor’s Josh Levine was the state singles champion.
