LONGMEADOW — Amherst Regional senior Allison McCann defeated a familiar foe Saturday to win her second straight Western Massachusetts Individual Tennis championship.
Less than 24 hours earlier, McCann defeated Haley Gurski of Minnechaug during the last team match of the regular season. Top-seeded McCann, who lost one game in Friday’s match, did one better on Saturday by blanking No. 2 Gurski, 6-0, 6-0 at the Longmeadow High School courts.
McCann also defeated Gurski last year to win the western Massachusetts singles title.
Despite Saturday’s score, McCann said winning the title match was not all that easy.
“We had good points, she hit really good shots,” said McCann. “It wasn’t easy, she definitely played really well.”
McCann said she is pleased with her second straight western Massachusetts singles championship.
“It feels good, I’m really happy about how it went,” said McCann. “I’m excited for states.”
McCann’s accomplishment also continued an impressive streak for the Hurricanes. The girls tennis team now has won the sectional individual singles title for eight straight years.
Amherst coach Gloria McCann, who is Allison’s mother, said she was pleased to see her daughter compete against Gurski in the final.
“She (Allison) was happy with the fact that this is her competition for the day. She’s familiar with her game so it wasn’t going into a setting where it was unknown,” said coach McCann. Gurski is “one of the best players in Western Mass.”
McCann defeated No. 5 Suzanne Elfman of Longmeadow, 6-1, 6-1, in the semifinals, while Gurski got past No. 3 Meghan Bernard of Belchertown, 6-1, 6-4.
Although Bernard’s title hopes were cut short by Gurski, she was dominant all season long.
Bernard now has a 15-1 record in singles and was a major part of the Orioles’ 42-match winning streak in the regular season over several years.
In the boys singles tournament, Amherst senior Andy Zyskowski, the No.3 seed, had a tough match against No.10 Sam Freedman of Longmeadow who won 6-2, 6-3.
Hurricanes coach Dan Herbst said he was satisfied with Zyskowski’s performance because the senior has been battling a bad elbow injury.
“He still fought hard despite the injury,” said Herbst. “It just wasn’t his best performance but he did fight hard and he’s had an outstanding season.”
Zyskowski said he enjoyed the experience one last time.
“I love the atmosphere here, everybody’s always looking forward to the individual tournaments,” Zyskowski said.
The Northampton boys were well represented as the Blue Devils had two doubles teams reach the semifinals, and both lost to Longmeadow pairs.
No. 4 Jack and Charlie Denhart were defeated 6-2, 6-3 by top-seeded David Bogdanis and Ben Schneider, while unseeded Galen Windsor and Jake Duggan lost 6-3, 6-2 to Patrick Burns and Daniel Draymore.
With this the first year that the boys and girls semifinals and finals were played in the same place, tournament director Matt Smith said he was glad the change was made.
“It’s a huge success, everybody’s feedback was very positive,” Smith said. “They thought it was very exciting, plenty of matches to watch.”