Cortland Standard .net

FULTON — The Cortland High boys’ tennis team had a late night Monday, and a season-opening win to show for it.
The third doubles team of Braden Jones and Luis Bruce completed a 7-6 (7-3), 0-6, 7-6 (7-5) win over host Fulton’s Robert Salerno and Jesse Smithers under the lights at 8:50 p.m. in windy conditions to give the Purple Tigers a 4-3 OHSL Freedom Division win.
CHS won all three doubles matches. Ben Condit and Garrett Reagan teamed up to win first doubles over Dakota Stoutenger and Charles Hyland III 6-1, 6-4 to give the visitors their first point of the season. The Red Raiders then won the next two matches, at first and second singles, before Cortland’s second doubles team of Jon Horner and Vadim Salashnyy rallied to beat Eric Shear and Anthony Salerno 4-6, 6-4, 6-2, tying the team score at 2-2.
Matthew Anecelle was Cortland’s only singles winner, downing Thomas Distin 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (7-5) at third singles to give the Purple Tigers a 3-2 lead. The players shook hands after Anecelle went ahead 5-3, Distin certain that the match was over according to CHS coach Bob Walrath. That result could have stood, but after consulting the Fulton coach it was agreed the match should continue. Anecelle fought off a pair of match points down 5-3 and ended up winning in the tiebreaker.
Fulton then won at fourth doubles to tie things at 3-3, leading to the CHS third doubles win that was the day’s final match.
“It was normally the kind of match that you’d hope to win at mid-season or late in the season,” said Walrath, whose squad was down a man with first singles player Arsenije Markicevic unavailable. “With a team like ours, a mix of veterans and newcomers, you don’t expect to win matches like that early, especially against Fulton, a team that’s coached well, after a long trip like that. It was so windy at the end of the match that it was all offense on one side of the net and all defense on the other.
“Our new players were huge for us; they helped us out. Garrett Reagan was outstanding and won our Hustle Award. He was strong at the net, and really didn’t do anything wrong in the match.”
CHS is in the Freedom National Division and Fulton is in the Freedom American. The crossover counted as a league match for both teams.
Cortland hosts Chittenango on Wednesday and Mexico on Friday, both matches starting at 4:30 p.m.