Bayport-Blue Point Storms Back To Beat Wheatley For Long Island Division 2 Championship
Adversity is something the Phantoms of Bayport-Blue Point are not only used to, and overcoming it is what they take pride in. After losing in four straight Suffolk County Small School (Division 2) Championships, they defeated Port Jefferson to win its first county title on Wednesday.
And so when the Phantoms fell behind Wheatley 0-2 in the Long Island Division 2 Championship match on Thursday, no one panicked.
“This team is battle tested,” said Bayport-Blue Point head coach John Selvaggio. “All the adversity they have faced on and off the court has made them stronger as individuals and certainly as tennis players.”
That paid off as Bayport-Blue Point looked to follow up the program’s first Suffolk County boys’ tennis title with its first Long Island title. After Wheatley’s Saje Menon, the Nassau County singles champion, won 6-0, 6-0 at first singles, and Spencer Edelstein & Maxwell Greenman won 6-3, 6-4 at third doubles, Bayport-Blue Point needed to win the remaining three courts to accomplish that.
Dominic Linzie & Declan Schug got the comeback rolling as they won 6-4, 6-1 at second doubles. Soon after, on the second singles court, Eric Swinkin brought his team even as he completed a 6-4, 7-6(3) victory.
That brought the Long Island title to be determined on the first doubles court in a showdown between Bayport-Blue Point’s Aidan Apicella & Nick Byman and Wheatley’s Julian Ostrow & Chase Yoon, the latter of whom had not dropped a set all season long.
Ostrow & Yoon won the first set 6-4, and the second set was back-and-forth which led it to a tiebreaker. Apicella & Byman raced out to a 5-1 lead, and a couple of points later, closed out the breaker to hand the Wheatley pairing its first set loss of the year, and force a deciding third set.
“It was a tough match,” said Apicella. “We were down 1-5 in the first set, and we came back to in the second set, so [going into that third] we knew we needed to make sure we did our best to rally with them and stay calm.”
Both teams battled in the third set, but it was Bayport-Blue Point who would come out on top. After breaking for a 5-3 lead, Apicella stepped to the service line to try and serve out the championship. They moved ahead 40-15, but saw two championship points go by the wayside.
“We knew we just had to stay composed,” Byman said. “There was a big crowd, and we really wanted to win. We knew if we worked together we could win those next two points.”
After winning the next point to set up a third chance to seal the win, Byman set up an overhead smash and did not miss, emphatically closing out the match and claiming his team’s first ever Long Island title.
“I did miss a couple of overheads that I should have put away earlier, so when it was there for me I knew I had to put it away,” Byman said. “This is for all the seniors the past few years in those county championship losses. From first singles down to the last player on the bench, everyone on this team puts the effort in, and we deserve this.”
Apicella added:
“I’ve been on this team for six years, and it feels great to finally win one. I couldn’t dream of anything better. We couldn’t have done it without all the support from everyone here.”
Bayport-Blue Point advances to the New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA) Team Championships on Friday, June 12 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
“This means a lot. This is a special group that has been with us since they were coming to our camps in elementary school. Now they are the ones teaching at and running the camps,” said Selvaggio. “These kids are made for tennis. They go out there and have fun, and I think that’s our recipe for success. That’s what States is all about. We want to go out there, have fun and make memories along the way. I know what we are up against, and it will be tough, but anything can happen.”
