South opens with victory

The Williamsville South boys tennis team opened the season with a 5-0 defeat at the hands of a strong mature Sweet Home team on Wednesday, April 18.

Although everyone played well, the Billies were clearly overmatched.

On Friday, April 20, South traveled to Iroquois and won 3-2. After the first sets were finished, South was winning at third singles and first doubles.

The first point to finish was second doubles where eighth graders Harrison Sinatra and Joey Putrelo were making their varsity debuts. After losing the first set 1-6, Sinatra and Putrelo settled down and played better in the second set, but fell short 3-6 to give Iroquois a 1-0 lead.

South's first doubles team of Brian Zaprowski and Doug Bounds improved on their first set 6-4 victory, by defeating Iroquois, 6-2, in the second set, evening the match at 1-1.

Iroquois' Brandon Steves had narrowly defeated South's second singles player, Ankit Pandey in a first-set tie breaker, 7-6, but stepped it up in the second set to win 6-1 and give Iroquois a 2-1 lead.

South's third singles Greg Potter had managed a close 7-5 victory in the first set over Iroquois' Ben Solowski. Potter hung on to defeat Solowski, 7-5, in the second set to even the match at 2-2.

By this time, South first singles player RJ Grampp had narrowly avoided defeat by winning a second set tie break to even his match with Mike O'Leyar at one set apiece. O'Leyar and Grampp played even until Grampp served at 4-5. A let cord at deuce gave match point to Iroquois, but Grampp managed to get back to deuce and hold on to get to 5-5. Grampp broke O'Leyar's serve to go up 6-5 and then held to win 7-5 and give the victory.

South is 1-1 with matches scheduled this week against West Seneca East and Williamsville East.