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Fredonia completes perfect season

Hillbillies sweep doubleheader with Westfield to finish league year at 10-0

Photo by Valory Isaacson Fredonia’s Dan Gifford competes in the County Championships on Tuesday. Gifford was one of multiple Hillbillies who competed in the County Championships on Tuesday, then faced off against Westfield later in the day to cap off the league year for the Hillbillies. In a doubleheader that was scheduled but rained out multiple times, Fredonia beat Westfield in both contests, first with a 5-0 Fredonia sweep, then a 3-2 Fredonia win.

OBSERVER Staff Report

LAKEWOOD — The Fredonia Hillbillies boys tennis team finished off a perfect regular season for the third straight year on Tuesday, with a sweep of a doubleheader against Westfield. With the wins, Fredonia finishes the season at 10-0 and improves to 37-0 over the past three seasons.

The first match on Tuesday against Westfield was a 10-game pro-set, which Fredonia swept 5-0. Neil Gens beat Marilynn Amborski 10-0 in first singles. Dan Gifford followed up with a 10-3 win over Isaac Caballero in second singles, then Jimmy Rush beat Cooper Harris 10-1. Fredonia wasn’t satisfied with just a win, however, and the doubles pairs for the Hillbillies finished off the 5-0 sweep with dominant victories. Max Kinkela and Caleb Reynolds beat Katie Bodenmiller and Olivia Clamp 10-4 in first doubles, then Trevor Napoli and Neil Cosico finished off the victory with a 10-1 win over Olivia Kitchen and Matthew Emmons.

In the second match of the doubleheader, Fredonia gave a few of its regulars a chance in different circumstances on a day that also featured the County Championships, which multiple Hillbillies were a part of. Fredonia shuffled its lineup but still came out on top of the 8-game set, 3-2 over Westfield.

In first singles, Kinkela beat Bodenmiller 8-1 in a matchup of two members of the first doubles contest earlier in the doubleheader. Westfield followed with a win in the matchup of the other pair, as Clamp defeated Reynolds 8-6. Cosico followed with a win for Fredonia in third singles over Charlie Bowen, 8-2. Then in first doubles, Rush and Gens beat Amborski and Nick Gross of Westfield, 8-0. Westfield got on the board once again in the final match of the day, as Harris and Kitchen beat Napoli and Jonas Jones in second doubles, 8-2.

Gens, a senior who has been on the team since he was in eighth grade, completed his regular season career at Fredonia with a record of 61-3. He has been the first singles player for Fredonia since his freshman year. He will be attending sectionals again this season. Kinkela, also a senior, has now gone 34-0 in league in doubles matches after Tuesday’s win. He will be playing with Reynolds today at the County Championships. Rush has managed just one loss in league singles matches in the last three years. He will be paired with Gifford in the doubles competition at County Championships.

“I’m really proud of all of these boys,” said Fredonia coach Lisa Johnston. “The seniors have done a really great job these last three years and will definitely be missed.”

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