Two neighboring schools with Section III championships in boys tennis already secured would face one another to see who would go into the New York State Public High School Athletic Association large-school team tournament.
And it was the Class B champions, Jamesville-DeWitt, that would emerge triumphant, the Red Rams edging Class A champion Fayetteville-Manlius last Saturday in a 4-3 classic.
Three of the four singles points went in J-D’s favor, led by Mark Bratslavsky, who went out and defeated Cameron Lukasik 6-0, 6-3 as Luke Cantone worked past Colin Byer 6-2, 6-3.
F-M got on the board when Jon So, who lost the first set 6-2 and was facing a second-set tie-breaker with Anthony Fico, won that set 7-3 and then, in a final-set race to 10 points, claimed it 10-6.
Another singles match got to three sets, but it was the Rams’ Shreyank Bhatt prevailing 7-5, 3-6, 6-2 over Xavier Sui, and all J-D needed was one point in doubles.
F-M caught up when Kaleen Michez and Justin Dunn rolled past Isiah Sternberg and Dean Bratslavsky 6-2, 6-1 as John Gilligan and Agniva Chaudhuri routed Jacob Price and Nate Amare 6-1, 6-0.
But J-D got the clinching point when Will Sharlow and Carson Souser, routed in the first set 6-1 by Dan Manta and Gene Balian, pulled out two tense sets by equal 7-5 margins to send the Rams to the state tournament.
