CENTRAL NEW YORK – Most of the area’s high school boys tennis teams will battle for Section III team championship honors in three different classes early this week.
Fayetteville-Manlius is again the top seed in Class A, with East Syracuse Minoa the no. 3 seed and Christian Brothers Academy the no. 5 seed, while Jamesville-DeWitt is the no. 2 seed in Class B and Manlius Pebble Hill the no. 6 seed in Class D.
Late last week, J-D and ESM faced each other, with the Red Rams pulling out a 4-3 decision over the Spartans.
Each of the singles matches went to J-D in straight sets, with Kian Sarmast claiming the closest one 6-0, 6-4 over Aaron Martin. ESM countered with three points in doubles, all of them in straight sets, too.
Only in first doubles did the Rams get the best of the Spartans, earning the clinching point when Shreyank Bhatt and Carson Souser got past Jayce Domres and Jacob Harman 6-2, 6-1.
J-D went into the week 7-0 and then added two more wins to that total last Monday in a sweep of two matches against Fulton.
The first one went 6-1 in the Red Rams’ favor as, in single-set matches to 10 games, Iskender Mambetaliev had the closest in singles, beating Max Scipone 10-4. Two doubles matches were forfeited.
The 7-0 follow-up match had Dean Bratslavsky hold off Alan Craig 10-8 in singles, with shutouts from Sarmast and Will Sharlow in singles as well as the doubles team of Shreyank Bhatt-Carson Souser.
Yet when the Red Rams faced Baldwinsville, it managed just a single point and, by a 6-1 margin, took its first loss of the season. Sharlow and Bhatt earned the only point, in doubles, rallying past Nick Helbig and Andrew Jungs in a 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 decision.
F-M, fresh off its tough May 2 win over B’ville, blanked Liverpool 7-0 last Monday, with John Gilligan’s 6-4, 6-4 singles win over Matt McKeon the closest match.
Jonathan So topped Kasey Maher 6-3, 6-1, while Colin Byer blanked Patrick Clancy 6-0, 6-0 as the doubles teams of Justin Dunn-Dan Manta, Rowan Spates-Andrew Hoehner, Jared Duggal-Sawyer Brown and Zach Costanza-William Ferguson all getting sweeps.
ESM leaned on its doubles teams during a 7-0 shutout of West Genesee.
Coming from behind when it was two games from defeat, Domres and Harmon worked past Joe Paoli and Dan Alvaro 3-6, 6-4, 7-5, while Owen Tompkns and Jude Rudnick rallied, too, to beat Jonah Hanlon and Sawyer Ruston 5-7, 6-3, 6-0. Ari Oviedo and Carter Jacobs finished off Jacob Dalton and Paul Toumbacaris 7-5, 6-7 (7-5), 6-2.
CBA took its perfect 9-0 record into a showdown with 11-0 Cazenovia last Wednesday and ended up on the wrong end of a 4-1 defeat.
Only in doubles did the Brothers get a point, with Hunter Szatkowski and Andrew Arcuri routing Evan Molloy and Max Reger 6-0, 6-1. Two others matches were lost in three sets as Gabriel Yang, in a third-set tiebreak, fell to Gabe Reagan 6-0, 3-6, 7-6 (7-3) and, in doubles, John Engle and Joe Riccelli could not hold an early lead in a 5-7, 6-3, 6-3 defeat to Ethan Camp and Cy Luries.
Before this, CBA rolled past Phoenix last Monday 5-0, again in single sets. Chanu Yang, Soren Kang and Gabriel Yang all dominated singles, while in doubles Engle and Riccelli handled Jackson Giacobbi and Cooper Graham 10-3. Anthony Lisi and Razi Marshall also prevailed in doubles.
A 4-1 victory over Chittenango followed, with the Brothers getting straight-set singles wins from Chanu and Gabriel Yang as Kang, in three sets, rallied past Seth Boulter 4-6, 6-1, 6-1. Arcuri and Szatkowski won in doubles 6-2, 6-4 over Vince DiNatale and Seamus Gardner.
MPH broke a mid-season skid last Monday by topping Marcellus 4-1. Jon Howard’s 6-3, 6-4 singles win over Liam Lundrigan complemented sweeps by Jaasmin Zaman and Abe Salomon, with Andy and Sam Lurvey shutting out Trace Roming and Jakob O’Donnell 6-0, 6-0.
A 5-0 shutout of Pulaski followed on Wednesday afternoon, and MPH kept it up Thursday, blanking Onondaga 5-0 as the Trojans gave up just four games in 10 combined sets, moving to 8-3 overall.
