Tennis stars from six different local high schools were battling for spots in the state tournament during last week’s Section III state qualifier – and three of the schools would end up with players heading for New York City.
That included the top two doubles teams in the tournament, which started last Thursday at Mott Courts in Utica, as Fayetteville-Manlius’ duo of Dan Miron and Nick Westergaard and East Syracuse-Minoa’s team of Brandon Stone and Tyler Underwood got to the finals.
Miron and Westergaard started with a 6-0, 6-0 shutout over Adam Blanks and Sam Olsen (Clinton), followed by a 6-0, 6-1 romp over Ross Padula and Sean Saltzburger (New Hartford), leading to the semifinals, where they secured advancement by beating teammates Mike Mintskovsky and Brooks Nagle 6-1, 6-1.
On the other half of the bracket, Stone and Underwood beat CBA’s duo of Dan Mantooth and Brooks Werner 6-2, 6-2 in its round of 16 match and, in the quarterfinals, got past Hunter Cohen-Ciampichini and Nick Walker (Baldwinsville) 6-2, 6-1. Then, in the semifinals, a 6-0, 6-1 romp over West Genesee’s Alex Fox and Connor Smith put them in the finals.
They played the final on Friday, at Drumlins, and it proved to be a lopsided affair as Miron and Westergaard handled Stone and Underwood 6-0, 6-1, though both will play again next weekend for the state tournament at the USTA-Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
Moving to the singles division, Manlius-Pebble Hill’s Andrew Mariados proved a revelation. He beat Utica Proctor’s Kevin Vo 6-0, 6-3 in his opening match and surprised West Genesee’s Garrett Boleslav 6-0, 6-2 in the quarterfinals before a 6-2, 6-3 semifinal win over Cazenovia’s Nate Romig secured a trip to the state tournament.
Josh Druger made his own run, too, for F-M, romping past WG’s Connor McGuigan 6-0, 6-2 and then topping New Hartford’s Deepak John by those same scores before running into McGuigan’s teammate, Brent Boleslav, in the semifinals and taking a 6-2, 6-3 defeat.
And now Brent Boleslav faced Mariados in the final. Perhaps getting payback for his brother’s defeat, Brent defeated Mariados in straight sets by scores of 6-4, and 6-3, though now they would be teammates on the Section III state tournament side.
As that went on, Druger needed to beat Romig in the consolation bracket final to advance to the state tournament. And it turned into an instant classic as Druger lost the first set, 6-4, but in the second set kept matching serve with Romig, leading to an epic tie-breaker.
Down 4-2 at one point in the tie-breaker, Druger caught up, and they traded points again, all the way to 12-12, before Druger finally broke Romig’s serve and took the tie-breaker 14-12 to claim the set 7-6.
Somehow, Romig shook off this disappointment and played a brave third set, erasing Druger’s 5-3 lead by earning back the break to tie it, 5-5. One last time, though, Druger broke Romig’s serve and then held on to it, winning the final set 7-5 and the match.
Meanwhile, in the championship match, Mariados ran into West Genesee’s Brent Boleslav, who prevailed 6-4, 6-3, though both joined Druger in advancing to the state tournament.
F-M’s Riley Ma beat Cortland’s Kristian Reynolds 6-0, 6-1 in the first round and stopped Bishop Grimes’ Matt Miller 6-0, 6-1 in the next rounds before a tough 6-4, 5-7, 6-1 defeat to Romig in the quarterfinals. MPH’s Ryley Amond and Grimes’ Dan Ostaszewski both lost in the opening round.
Jamesville-DeWitt saw both of its duos lose in the early arounds, as Jake Cline and Josh Frank fell to Padula and Saltzberger 6-3, 6-7, 6-4 in the round of 16 and the pair of Robert Dotterer and Rahul Raina fell to Fox and Smith 6-2, 7-5.
