A historic season for Cazenovia boys tennis player Nate Romig would conclude at a historic venue.
They hold the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships each spring at the USTA-Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, Queens, where the U.S. Open is contested at the end of each summer.
Romig went there as the champion of the Section III qualifying tournament and as a part of a Lakers squad that secured the program’s first sectional team title in nearly three decades.
In the opening round on Thursday morning, Romig went up against Scarsdale’s Luke Smith. Each of the sets proved close and competitive, but Smith prevailed, 6-4, 6-3, sending Romig into a 16-man consolation bracket, where fellow sectional players Taran Judge (Fayetteville-Manlius) and Scott Minnoe (Auburn) ended up after they lost in the opening round, too.
Regrouping, Romig beat Abhniav Srivastaba (Half Hollow Hills East) 6-2, 6-4 in the first consolation match. Then, on Friday, Romig met Michael Haelen, from Albany Academy, and took a 6-2, 6-3 defeat that ended his state tournament run.
Judge also lost in the consolation bracket quarterfinals, while in doubles Jamesville-DeWitt’s Robert Dotterer and Peter Hatton won twice and made it to the quarterfinals before falling to defending champions Hope Crawford and Courage Crawford, from Mamaroneck. Tyler Bertram and Pierce Snyder (Cooperstown) lost in the round of 16, while F-M’s James DeSorbo and Vince Sorrentino took an opening-round defeat.
