BALDWINSVILLE – Just like so many times before, the Baldwinsville boys tennis team would have to climb past Fayetteville-Manlius in order to reach the top of the Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division standings – and nearly did so.

The two undefeated sides clashed last Thursday afternoon, and the host Bees got within a single set of victory, only to get turned back by the Hornets and take a 4-3 defeat.

B’ville set itself up well by what it did in singles. Nathan Smith, in straight sets, defeated Jonathan So 6-1, 6-0, while Eric Ventura earned two straight tiebreaks before dominating the third set and beating Colin Byer 7-6, 6-7, 6-1.

With Mason Doan falling 6-1, 6-2 to Cameron Lukasik in first singles, the Bees needed two points out of doubles, and nearly got them as the pivotal matches went to three sets.

Kai Wilson and Nick Fogu withstood the comeback attempt of Sawyer Brown and Jared Duggal to win 6-3, 1-6, 6-4, and B’ville saw Connor Davidson and Tom Canfield move in front of Will Ferguson and Zach Costanza with a 6-4 win in the opening set.

Yet Davidson and Canfield could not close it out. Instead, Ferguson and Costanza won those two sets 6-3, 6-4 to give F-M a clinching fourth point.

Already, Nick Helbig and Andrew Jung had lost to Justin Dunn and Dan Manta 6-1, 6-4, with Zach Pendergast and Ethon Haahr taking a 6-1, 6-1 loss to William Sul and John Gilligan.

These same two teams go at it again on Friday afternoon, this time on the F-M campus, closing out the regular season after matches early in the week for B’ville against Cicero-North Syracuse and Jamesville-DeWitt.