History was made at the Gloucester High tennis courts on Monday afternoon.
Taking on Wakefield in the Division 3 Round of 16, the Gloucester boys squad earned a hard fought 3-2 victory to advance to the program’s first Elite 8 appearance in over two decades.
The Fishermen now head to rival Swampscott on Wednesday (4:30 p.m. start) with a chance to secure their spot in the tournament’s Final Four.
“It’s been a long time coming and the team has worked really hard to achieve this, so I couldn’t be more proud,” said Gloucester head coach Derek Geary, his team now 15-5 on the year. “It’s a team that really all started together here as freshmen with very little tennis experience, most of them no tennis experience. They’ve all stuck to it and have improved exponentially. It’s a great achievement for these kids.”
In securing the narrow victory over Wakefield, Gloucester earned wins at No. 2 and 3 singles as well as first doubles.
Anders Littman opened things up with an impressive performance in the second singles slot, beating his opponent for the second time this season with a convincing 6-2, 6-3 decision.
“He wore down his opponent with his beguiling combination of consistency and backhand passing shots,” said Geary. “He’s developed a real weapon over his career (with his backhand) and it served him well again today. He can hit it with touch, he can hit it with sting … he’s got a lot of variety.”
In the first doubles slot, Dom Paone and Luke McElhenny were utterly dominant in a 6-1, 6-1 triumph. It’s a duo that’s found success all spring and really hit their stride down the stretch. They’ll look to continue their strong play against Swampscott on Wednesday in a match that could very well decide the team victor.
“Those matches (against Swampscott) have always been hinged on what happens at first doubles and (Swampscott) has gotten the better of us both times,” said Geary. “So they’ll have the match of their careers in that one and we’ll see what happens Wednesday.”
The match of the day came at third singles, where 8th-grader Shane Widtfeldt continued to impress. After losing to the same opponent in a regular season match against Wakefield earlier this season, Widtfeldt re-tooled his strategy and came away with a 6-4, 6-4 victory to seal the deal for his squad.
“He just has a way of extending points that’s special. And remarkably for an 8th-grader he made some tactical adjustments and real tactical decisions that won him the match,” said Geary. “He went to the net on important points and kept the other kid off balance.”
There was a big crowd centered around Widtfeldt and “many entertaining points”, according to Geary.
“Several back and forth volleys at the net, so it was a lot of fun for the fans,” added the coach.
The second doubles duo of Cole Ciolino and Cam Widfeldt weren’t able to come out on top, but battled hard in a 7-5, 7-6 loss. First singles standout Andry Payano Sosa ran into a very difficult opponent and suffered a rare loss, 6-0, 6-2.
Gloucester is moving on nonetheless, and while they fell to Swampscott twice during the regular season, both matches were close throughout and anything can happen come tournament time.