Regional tennis

By Staff Reports
Published in Sports on May 10, 2011 1:47 PM

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WILSON -- Eastern Wayne's Chaz Fitzpatrick and Wilson Fike's Nick James will meet today for the N.C. High School Athletic Association 3-A east regional individual tennis championship.

Fitzpatrick, the reigning regional champ, advanced to the finals with back-to-back victories over Charles B. Aycock sophomore Will Hoff and West Carteret's Joonas Ilva. Ilva retired in the third set at 2-all after splitting the first two sets.

James eliminated Aycock's Michael Kearney in the quarterfinals and turned back Nash Central's Turner Votipka 6-2, 6-1 in semifinal-round play.

Ilva and Votipka will play their third-place match today, also.

In opening-round play, the Golden Falcons' Hoff and Kearney prevailed against Currituck's Aaron Baker and Washington's Ryan Vick, respectively. James knocked out Eastern Wayne's Mike Barnette in straight sets.

On the doubles' side, Eastern Carolina Conference champions Brandon Outlaw-Alan Nunez reached the second round with a 6-2, 6-3 triumph over Aycock's Addison Vail-Rex Rose. Outlaw-Nunez suffered a three-set loss against Northern Nash's tandem of Bryson Williams-Jonah Richardson in the quarterfinals.

Aycock's duo of Bradley Wilson-Austin Walker dropped an opening-round, three-set defeat against Southern Nash's Tim Lewandowski-Armando Villareal.

Eastern Wayne's Steven Taylor-Mitchell Kaspar concluded the regional 1-1 after a second-round loss to Southern Nash's Owen Fike-Adam Glover.

Class 1-A

Rosewood's doubles of Cole Radcliff-Fuad Ismail claimed the lone victory among Wayne County competitors in the 2011 NCHSAA east 1-A regional contested at Herman Park.

Radcliff-Ismail shut out South Robeson's Ismael Soto-Dekwon Billings 6-0, 6-0. They endured a second-round defeat against N.C. School of Science & Math's Justin Harden-Andrew Wu.

Teammates Matt Binda and the doubles of Zach Behrend-Daniel Elawar each suffered a first-round loss. Binda dropped a 7-5, 7-5 heartbreaker to River Mill's Sebastian Zuhr.

Goldsboro's doubles of Bernard Green-Charles Robinson stumbled in the opening round. Spring Creek's Daniel Krentz and the tandem of JD Quick-Cody Boozer were also handed first-round defeats in singles and doubles, respectively.

NCSSM's Russell Turner, who transferred from Eastern Wayne, emerged the singles champion with a 6-1, 6-0 decision over teammate Kevin Huang. Turner lost just one game and defeated every opponent in straight sets, except for Ayden-Grifton's Mike Bergs, who retired.