Tennis: Arnold girls, Bay boys advance to regional finals

For the second straight year, Bay dispatched Rickards on Tuesday to move on to another head-to-head challenge with Gulf Breeze in boys tennis, and Arnold’s girls routed Wakulla to get a return encounter with the Dolphins’ girls.

Bay downed Rickards 7-0 in the team portion of the Region 1-2A tournament. The Tornadoes play at Gulf Breeze at 2 p.m. Thursday for the opportunity to compete as a unit in next week’s team state tournament in Casselberry.

Arnold’s girls eliminated Wakulla 6-1, and have the same itinerary, albeit against the Gulf Breeze girls who have dominated the past few years at the state level.

“You never know what can happen on any given day,” Arnold coach Walt Hodges said, fully aware of the challenge facing his squad on Thursday. “The chances are small, but they still are chances. We’ve been lucky just to win a few games on them in the past at the district tournament, and we’d love to win a few matches. That’s kind of what looking forward to, but there’s always the possibility for a win.”

Bay lost only one set to Rickards, but Coach Kay Kovaleski said that was somewhat misleading.

“They were a lot better than they were last year,” Kovaleski said of the Raiders, “and when you play someone new I was kind of worried we might drop some matches.

“But we played smarter tennis, not necessarily better tennis, and we were able to win all of the matches because of that.”

Kovaleski said that the Tornadoes haven’t defeated the Dolphins’ boys in three years. Gulf Breeze won last year’s region final 5-2.

“We are going in just like we did last year,” she said. “We feel like we can beat them.

“We’ve already talked about it. We won one and two (singles) and one doubles at the district, so we’ll see.”

Bay boys 7, Rickards 0

• Singles — No. 1: Jason Moody def. Phal Rupanaqudi 6-0, 6-2, No. 2: Tyler Barr def. Tarun Gupta 6-1, 6-1, No. 3: Patrick Barry def. Dyan Velle 6-4, 6-4, No. 4: Dylan McCormick def. Kenneth Soyars 6-3, 6-1, No. 5: Connor Healey def. Patrick Lu 2-6, 6-1, 7-5.
• Doubles — No. 1: Moody-Barr def. Velle-Chris Kim 8-1, No. 2: Barry-McCormick def. Gupta-Soyars 8-3.

Arnold girls 6, Wakulla 1

• Singles — No. 1: Bianca Biglione def. Alicia Porter 6-0, 6-0, No. 2: Tori Pettofrezzo def. Kelly Graves 6-0, 6-0, No. 3: Emma Moskowitz def. Tara Smith 6-1, 6-3, No. 4: Kalin Jordan def. by Shelby Vince 6-4, 6-4, No. 5: Natalia Busuttil def. Alyssa Porter 6-2, 6-2.
• Doubles — No. 1: Biglione-Pettofrezzo def. Porter-Graves 6-0, 6-0, No. 2: Moskowitz-Jordan def. Vince-Courtney Briggs 6-3, 4-6, 6-1.