A season’s full of hard work and preparation for the Cazenovia boys tennis team boiled down to how it would fare during Saturday’s Section III Class C-1 championships at Liverpool High School.
And not only did the Lakers flourish, it won four of the five contested divisions in wildly varying manners.
Aiden Kalteski emerged as the champion in second singles, dominating that division. He shut out Little Falls’ T.J. Gottung 6-0, 6-0 in the quarterfinals and, in the semifinals, Kalteski worked past Clinton’s Antonio Femia 6-0, 6-2.
The final went just the same, Kalteski only dropping just three games against Holland Patent’s Alec Helmer was he prevailed in straight sets 6-3, 6-1.
Moving to third singles, Traian Cherciu had a more dramatic path to the title, specifically in the finals, where against another Holland Patent player, Glen Gaige, he was pushed to a third set and a tie-breaker, but pulled it out 6-4, 4-6, 7-6.
Before that, in the semifinals, Cherciu lost the first set to Canastota’s Xavier Farwell, but prevailed 6-7, 6-4, 2-0 when Farwell had to pull out in the final set. And in the first round, Cherciu had tough 7-5, 7-5 win over Marcellus’ Chris Barbaro.
Yet another victory was claimed in first doubles by Cazenovia’s Teddy Coughlin and Liam Flannery, who rolled past Lowville’s Joel Cavanaugh and Hugo Zabielowicz 6-1, 6-2, setting a up a close final where they outlasted the Skaneateles duo of Nate Fouts and Andrew Neumann 6-4, 5-7, 6-4.
To cap this off, Dan Gavilondo and Teddy Williams earned the second doubles title, beating Casey Beach and Alex Fung (Manlius-Pebble Hill) 6-0, 6-2 to reach the finals and then topping Skaneateles’ Chris Burgher and Jack Panaschi 6-3, 7-6 in the championship round.
In the Class B sectional tournament at Utica Parkway, Chittenango had David Seale and Nate Smith beat Michael Diheberg and Brandin Smalls (Central Valley) 6-2, 7-6 before a 6-1, 6-1 loss in the quarterfinals to Oneida’s Aidan and Ajay Hicks.
Devon Hardy and Brian Schermerhorn lost in second doubles 7-6, 2-6, 6-4, to Indian River’s Sammy Angelo and Kaden McConnell. In singles, Evan Edwards lost, 6-2, 7-5, to Cortland’s Dan Ruggiero, with Anthony Roberts falling to New Hartford’s Matt Cioni 7-5, 6-3. Evan Smith had a 6-0, 7-5 loss to Westhill’s Kyle Hagrman.
