An up-and-down season for the Skaneateles boys tennis team culminated in its appearance early last week in the Section III Class C-1 tournament at Syracuse University’s Skytop Courts, which featured a series of top finishes and one run to the finals.
Connor Jones and Anthony Panasci nearly won in second doubles. With a bye straight into the semifinals, Jones and Panasci got past Holland Patent’s Dan Redmond and Nick Rubino 6-0, 6-4.
Then, in the finals, Jones and Panasci led Cazenovia’s Ben Kmetz and Harry McDonough after a 6-2 win in the first set and had the second set in a tie-breaker before Kmetz and McDonough won it, 7-6, and then prevailed 6-2 in the third set, making Jones and Panasci settle for a second-place finish.
In second singles, Ethan Weldon went straight to the semifinals, where he lost a 6-0, 6-1 decision to MPH’s Ryley Amond, who went on to top Cazenovia’s Wyatt Lansing 6-0, 6-3 as Weldon, in the consolation bracket final, swept Holland Patent’s Lennart Hoffman 6-4, 6-1 to finish third.
Much the same thing happened to Connor Driscoll in third singles, where he beat Antonio Morra (Herkimer) 6-0, 6-0 and then lost a 6-4, 6-2 semifinal to Cazenovia’s Mason Stehle. Like Weldon, Driscoll won third place by stopping Holland Patent’s Leonard Petter 6-2, 6-2 in the consolation bracket final as Stehle beat MPH’s Ini Oguntola in three sets for the division title.
Zach Driscoll played in first singles, but did not get out of the opening round, falling to Cortland’s Matt Larkin 7-5, 6-4. Top seed Andrew Mariados, from Manlius-Pebble Hill, beat Cazenovia’s Nate Romig 6-2, 7-5 in the championship round.
With their efforts, Jones and Panasci advanced to the Section III state qualifier, held later in the week, where three singles players and doubles players will earn berths in this weekend’s state championship tournament at the USTA-Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens.
Jones and Panasci had a first-round bye, but in the round of 16 ran into Fayetteville-Manlius’ tandem of James DeSorbo and Vince Sorrentino, who beat them 6-3, 6-4. DeSorbo and Sorrentino went on to a quarterfinal loss to West Genesee’s state-qualifying duo of Brent and Garrett Boleslav.
