CENTRAL NEW YORK – Prior to now, all that the Fayetteville-Manlius boys tennis team had not accomplished was a state championship, something only contested at the singles and doubles level before.
Now, though, there’s a full-blown state tournament, and the Hornets were a part of it after nearly sweeping all the top honors at Wednesday’s Section III Class A championships at SUNY-Cortland, where Christian Brothers Academy and East Syracuse Minoa also took part.
F-M and Baldwinsville dominated the tournament, heading up head-to-head in four of the five championship matches, with the Hornets taking three of them.
Dominating second singles, Cameron Lukasik lost just one game – to CBA’s Soren Kang in a 6-1, 6-0 final after he shut out Gabriel Volo (Auburn) and Joshua Chun (Oswego). Kang had needed a 6-3, 6-7, 6-4 win over B’ville’s Mason Doan to reach the final.
To win third singles, F-M’s Colin Byer had to rally and survive a third-set tie-breaker in the semifinals with CBA’s Gabriel Yang 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 before he beat B’ville’s Logan Bolton 6-3, 7-5 in the finals. Yang went on to finish third.
In first doubles, it was Fergus Brady and Andrew Li winning for the Hornets, not dropping a set in three matches leading to a final where they topped the B’ville duo of Andrew Jung and Connor Tutor 6-1, 6-2. CBA had John Engle and Will Vandemeer lose in the quarterfinals.
The final in third doubles had the Hornets’ Jaden Duggal and Davin Woolridge against the Bees’ Max Funicello and Nick Licciardello, which the F-M pair claimed 7-6, 7-5 as the Brothers’ team of Fabrizio Arezzo and Finn Doyle finished fourth.
Duggal and Woolridge beat ESM’s Jack Satterlee and Josh Spilka in the quarterfinals after Satterlee and Spilka had a 6-2, 2-6, 6-1 first-round win over Utica Proctor’s Maksim Morgan and Emin Skijan.
Only David Fernando was denied a title for the Hornets, in first singles, where he lost the final to B’ville’s Antonio Marsallo 6-0, 6-4.
CBA’s Chanu Yang lost in the opening round, as did ESM’s Krish Patel and Noah Satterlee in their respective singles divisions, with the Spartan’s doubles team of Jayce Domres-Donovan Randall also falling in the opening round.
At Utica Parkway Courts, Jamesville-DeWitt sought top honors in Class B and were able to win in two of the three doubles divisions to help its cause, but still finished second to New Hartford.
In first doubles, top seeds Mark Bratslavsky and Luke Cantone only dropped three games in four sets on the way to the title match against New Hartford’s David Berg and Leo Padula, which was just as lopsided, Bratslavsky and Cantone rolling to a 6-2, 6-0 victory.
A pair of straight-set wins got William Parratt and Carson Souser to the second doubles final, where against New Hartford’s Deen Kaakour and Ken Kowalczyk Parrat and Souser were able to earn a 6-3, 7-6 victory.
Anthony Fico made his way to the third singles final, rallying to upend top seed Drew Hicks (Oneida) 5-7, 6-2, 6-1 in the semifinals before facing Marcellus’ Tucker Guerina in the finals where he lost in three sets 6-1, 1-6, 6-2.
Will Sharlow lost in the second singles semifinal 6-2, 6-2 to Evan Lyga (New Hartford), with Shreyank Bhatt defeated in the first singles quarterfinals.
Also at Cortland, the sectional Class C-1 tournament had Manlius-Pebble Hill, who featured Anthony Pitts getting third place in first singles when he rallied to beat Holland Patent’s Glen Gaige 2-6, 6-2, 7-5.
Alex Fung was fourth in second singles, with Kevin Fratositanu and Abraham Salamon taking a first-round defeat, as did the team of Matt Roberson and Deven Trikka.
