BELCHERTOWN — Belchertown’s Trevor Weiss rallied for 1 minute, 45 seconds to secure a spot in the Western Massachusetts final.
Northampton’s Reilly Fowles served facing match point, and neither of the two No. 2 singles players gave their opponent an opening to finish the point.
Fowles faltered first, hitting his return shot into the net to hand the game, set and match to Weiss and the Western Massachusetts Class B semifinal to the No. 2 seed Orioles, 4-1.
“I don’t think either of us wanted to lose that,” Weiss said.
He prevailed 7-5, 6-3 to clinch the third point for Belchertown. The Orioles, two-time defending champions, are playing in their seventh consecutive sectional final.
“This has just been the standard,” Belchertown senior and No, 1 singles payer Thomas Vinagre said. “We’ve set this goal and we’ve wanted to continue to achieve this goal, achieve this excellence.”
Trevor Weiss clinched it for @LobCityTennis with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Reilly Fowles at No. 2 singles. @OriolesAthltcs up 3-1 with 1 doubles still on the court pic.twitter.com/bGPLcBfUx9
— Kyle Grabowski (@kylegrbwsk) May 24, 2022
They’ll face No. 1 Amherst on June 1, both trying to defend a title. The Hurricanes are the defending Division 1 Western Mass champions.
Vinagre bested Northampton’s Aidan Metz 6-2, 7-6 (7-4) to bring the Orioles to the brink. After a comfortable first set, he muddled through the early part of the second, falling behind 6-5 and facing a potential third set.
“There’s just confidence. I had a game plan how I wanted to approach it this time after that annoying loss (in the regular season),” Vinagre said. “I made myself a game plan and stuck through it and focused up.”
He won the next game behind a powerful serve to force a tiebreaker and kept Metz at bay to finish it.
“I just put in my mind ‘one point at a time.’ It’s gonna be a slow grind,” Vinagre said. “It’s gonna have to be point by point.”
Belchertown (14-4) also swept both doubles points.
The No. 2 squad of Jacob Chaisson and Chris Adzima won 6-0, 6-2 against Levi Armstrong and Max Cahillane.
“This entire season, the main word, the key word that we’ve been going by is consistency,” Chaisson said. “Whether it’s finding a corner or keeping it alive, serves… we’re not always trying to smoke it. We’re just trying to stay consistent.”
They also play soccer together and communicate well on switches and who should handle certain shots.
Belchertown’s No. 1 pair of Kiernan Corish and Carson Boscher started strong with a 6-2 win over Max Cahillane and Durrell Patrick, but the Blue Devils responded with a 6-4 victory in Set 2.
Belchertown righted the ship and won the third set 6-0 in an already-decided match.
“Knowing that helped us relax and play how we wanted to,” Corish said.
Northampton No. 3 singles player Ethan Metz picked up the Blue Devils’ point with a 6-1, 6-0 victory over Michael Alves.
“My opponent didn’t have very much spin on the ball so I was mostly trying to get it to where I could hit an angled ball to his backhand,” Metz said.
His victory tied the match at 1-1, and though Belchertown led by a set in each of the remaining matches, Northampton (9-8) was up in strong positions in many of the sets before the Orioles locked it down.
“We had two tough matches against them this season,” Northampton coach Ben Lewis said. “They got better over the course of the year.”
The loss doesn’t end the Blue Devils’ season, however. They are the No. 27-ranked team in the Division 3 state tournament (Belchertown is ranked 24th). The top 32 automatically qualify, and any team over .500, which includes Northampton, is included in the bracket.
“Our players are so good at learning from each of the matches that they’re in,” Lewis said. “Our players have fun while they’re out here, and they’re learning the whole time.”
Belchertown will be in that same state field but won’t look past Amherst and the challenge it presents in Wednesday’s sectional final.
“The state tournament is a whole different beast, but we want to take care of things regionally,” Belchertown coach Zach Siano said. “This is what our guys have wanted since they came into high school.”
Kyle Grabowski can be reached at kgrabowski@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @kylegrbwsk.