W. Warwick cruises past Cumberland
Clippers can’t follow up on Thursday’s win
WEST WARWICK — Fresh off a win over Exeter/West Greenwich Thursday, the West Warwick tennis team was back in action on Friday afternoon, playing host to a team they had little familiarity with.
Cumberland made the transition to Division II since dropping down from D-I last year and were facing the Wizards, who are in the middle of their own transition to D-II, having moved up from D-III.
Though there would be some competitive moments, West Warwick proved in the end to be the stronger club, sweeping all four singles matches in a 5-2 overall victory.
The win improved the Wizards to 6-1, while Cumberland fell to 3-4 just a day after edging out Cranston West at home, 4-3.
Their match against the Falcons went well into the night, which in turn had some carry over effect into Friday’s meeting with West Warwick according to the team’s first year head coach Justin Houle. He could see that his players were fatigued.
“A lot of my singles guys, they weren’t moving their feet. I tell the guys that we need to work on our footwork more than anything,” he said.
While they dropped all four singles matches, there were positive signs for the road ahead, which is what the Clippers are ultimately focused on.
No. 2 singles player Nate Courtemanche, a freshman, got off to a solid start against West Warwick’s Ethan Schaffer, with only one break separating the two in a 6-4 openingset win for the Wizards.
Fatigue caught up with Courtemanche from there, as he was blanked 6-0 in the second set, with Schaffer remaining undefeated in the two-slot for West Warwick this year.
On the next court over, Clippers’ top singles player, Kevin Connors, rebounded nicely after getting shut out, 6-0, by Ethan Hoy in the first set. The senior battled back to force a tiebreaker in the second, but that would be as far as he would get, as Hoy claimed the breaker convincingly, 7-1, for the win.
Before the top two singles matches were completed, Dylan Wheeler securing the first point of the afternoon for the Wizards with a 6-2, 6-1 win over sophomore Greg Joyce, which Wizards head coach Greg Gonsalves highlighted after the win.
“Dylan Wheeler is usually the last one off the court with two-, threehour matches. He was the first one off today, so I think he set a good tone and everybody else just followed,” Gonsalves said.
The final singles match was between West Warwick’s Mario Gambardella and Griffin Lamoureux. Gambardella prevailed 6-3, 6-4 and had high praise for his opponent as well as the overall competition.
“They’re a phenomenal team. They have really good players,” he said, adding that the Clippers as a whole are one of the tougher teams the Wizards have faced on the year.
His own match was the closest of the four featured, with the sophomore managing to come through in the clutch by day’s end.
“It went the best it could have gone. The kid was really good,” he said of Lamoureux, whose style of play closely mirrored his own.
The doubles matches would be the highlight of the day for the Clippers, with their one defeat coming via forfeit. Seth Goldman and Jason Diedrich took care of business against Guillermo Barron and Dimitri Vourvachakis, winning 6-0, 6-1 at first doubles, while Daniel Kochanczyk and Tyler Robillard topped Victor Lucchese and Jeffrey Mendoza, 7-5, 6-0 in a match the Wizards had to surrender before its completion.
Spencer Godfray and Nathan Flor capped the day with a win for West Warwick as they prevailed over Josef Madour and Justin Wahlers, 6-0, 6-1.
With only one loss thus far on the year, Gonsalves has been encouraged by the product his team has been able to turn out on a consistent basis.
“I’m excited. This is our first year in D-II and we’re doing really, really well,” he said.
Their lone defeat came last week against Classical in a tight 4-3 decision. Ethan Schaffer was absent for that match, so Gonsavles is hopeful that should they get another crack at the Purple, that they may beat them.
On the other side, Houle, while still building for the future, has confidence in what this year’s team can accomplish as well.
“We should definitely make the playoffs. I’m hoping to do well in the playoffs,” he said