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Seniors
Seniors Luigi Boselli, left, and Matt Tiffany enjoyed the sunshine, finally, at Pomfret School where the Woodstock Academy boys’ tennis team held Senior Day festivities prior to their match with Stonington. Photo by Siana Green/The Woodstock Academy.
The Woodstock Academy boys’ tennis team had a chance to earn a share of the ECC Div. II regular season title.
Unfortunately, Stonington stood in its way. And the Bears have the Centaurs number.
“They were the team we were shooting to beat this year,” said assistant tennis coach Siana Green said.
It was a hurdle that Woodstock Academy just could not clear.
They handed the Centaurs a 5-2 loss at the Pomfret School courts May 18 and took the Division II title back to Stonington with them.
“It’s just trying to be more consistent,” Green said. “Talent-wise, we hit the ball as hard as they do. Every game was neck-and-neck this time, it was just who finished the point.”
More often than not, it was Stonington who accomplished that.
But there were positive signs for Woodstock Academy.
“It was so much better than when we played them a few weeks ago. We got pretty smoked down there, in regards to how the games went. In this case, we had a couple of three-set matches,” Green said.
The Centaurs did give the Bears some cause for concern,
David Fleck, the top singles player for the Centaurs, won his first set with Jake Stiger, 7-6 (7-4). Luigi Boselli came up with a 6-4 victory at No. 4 singles over Nathan Gonzalez.
There were also wins on the doubles side with the second doubles team of Jai Abrams and Connor Quinn picking up a 7-5 victory.
Evan Haskins and Joe Zhou also won their first set, 6-1.
Had it stayed that way, Woodstock Academy would have prevailed, 4-3.
“The tables turned in the second set,” Green said.
Boselli managed to win again, 6-2, to take the win at No. 4 singles on Senior Day.
The third doubles team of Haskins and Zhou also finished off their competition with a 6-1 victory.
“Every time I looked down to them, they were always up. I knew I didn’t have to worry about them,” Green said.
But the rest of the matches didn’t go Woodstock Academy’s way.
Fleck ended up losing in three sets as did Abrams and Quinn.
The Centaurs finished the regular season May 20 with a match against Norwich Free Academy at Norwich Tech. The match ended too late for this edition.
The Centaurs went into that final match of the year with a 13-4 record. “That’s a huge improvement from last year,” Green said.
The Centaurs finished 10-9 last year and 7-9 in 2017.
Due to the spate of recent weather woes, the Centaurs played only two other matches last week and they were both in the same day.
The Centaurs downed New London and Fitch by the same 6-1 score May 15 and built a six-match win streak which was ended by the Bears May 18.
The nightcap with the Falcons was not easy. All of the matches were rather lengthy including Fleck’s 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 win at No. 1 singles over Max Cartier. Riley Douglas was stretched at second singles to beat Aidan Sullivan, 7-6, 6-2.
Doubles weren’t much better. The second doubles team of Abrams and Quinn had to go to tiebreaker to post a 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 win. Douglas had a trying day all around. He also battled the New London’s Wesly Paulo in the first match of the day, managed to pull out a 6-2, 4-6, (10-8) win and sent the Centaurs on to the battle with Fitch.
Marc Allard
Sports Information Director
The Woodstock Academy
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