After another fine regular season, the Baldwinsville boys tennis team would travel to SUNY-Cortland last Wednesday to take part in the Section III Class A championships.
Playing in first singles, the Bees’ Antonio Marsallo made it all the way to the finals. Marsallo handled West Genesee’s Ryan Joyce 6-3, 6-1 before a long semifinal where, in three sets, Marsallo got past Fulton’s Eric Shear 7-6, 6-2, 6-2.
Perhaps worn from that match, Marsallo lost the final to Auburn’s Scott Minnoe 6-0, 6-2 as Minnoe dropped just three games the entire tournament, two of them to Marsallo.
In first doubles, B’ville’s Sam Damato and Alex Shaban got past Auburn’s Connor Davia and Jacob Wansor 6-1, 6-4, only to run into the super Fayetteville-Manlius tandem of Taran Judge and Riley Ma in the semifinals and take a 6-1, 6-0 defeat.
At least Damato and Shaban could take consolation in the fact that they were the only team to earn a game against Judge and Ma in the Hornets duo’s three-match run to the title, and they would finish third by outlasting Fulton’s Anthony and Robert Salerno in a 7-5, 4-6, 6-2 battle.
Also finishing third was the Bees’ second doubles team of Anthony Pompo and Alex Taylor. Having beaten Jon Corl and Brandon Milias (Cicero-North Syracuse) 6-2, 6-4, Pompo and Taylor fell to F-M’s Joel Farell and Jeremy Zhang 6-1, 6-0 in the semifinals, but beat Fulton’s Collin Bennett and Jessie Smithers 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 in the third-place match.
Eric Smith started out well in second singles, beating East Syracuse Minoa’s Kelvin Cheng 6-0, 6-1, but lost the semifinal to Auburn’s William Clark 6-3, 6-3 and dropped the third-place match to F-M’s Michael Miller 6-3, 6-0.
In third singles, Nick Licciardello won, 6-4, 6-4, over Liverpool’s Aaron Alejo, and had F-M’s Dilan Judge in trouble, only to fall 4-6, 6-2, 6-1, leading to a third-place match and a 7-6, 6-1 defeat to West Genesee’s Noah Ruston.
