Protest Upheld: Key Match to Resume at Westhampton

As the East Hampton High School and Ross School boys tennis teams were playing in Ross’s bubble Monday, a question remained hanging as to whether a protest filed earlier that day with Section XI on behalf of Bonac’s coach, Kevin McConville, would be upheld or rejected.

McConville’s protest stemmed from a dispute that had arisen between him and Westhampton Beach’s coach, John Czartosieski, concerning Friday’s match at Westhampton, which wound up with the Hurricanes’ coach claiming a 4-3 victory by forfeit at second doubles — the sticking point being Alex Weseley’s shirt.

Weseley and Hunter Medler were leading Brennan Tomlinson and Santo Benenati 6-5, and were changing sides with the Hurricanes about to serve, when Czartosieski, noticing that Weseley, who had removed his sweatshirt, was not wearing a uniform jersey, declared he was violating a Section XI rule. 

“I was running around looking for a jersey to put on Alex, from the bus or from a player whose match was finished, when their coach pulled his players and claimed a forfeit,” McConville said Saturday morning.

Tuesday morning the answer came: The county’s governing body for public high school sports had upheld McConville’s protest. The second doubles match will be resumed — with Weseley and Medler up 6-5 in the first set, and with Westhampton serving — on Monday at Westhampton Beach at 4:30 p.m.

Westhampton and East Hampton have been vying for the League VII championship. The Hurricanes — with Luke Louchheim out of East Hampton’s lineup because of illness — had edged the Bonackers 4-3 in the teams’ first match of the season, played at East Hampton on March 19.

It was thought going into Friday’s rematch that East Hampton, with Louchheim back at third singles, would have a good chance of reversing that score, and thus would probably wind up sharing the league title.

East Hampton that day lost at first and (unexpectedly) second singles, and at third doubles, while Westhampton lost at third and fourth singles, and at first doubles, which rendered second doubles pivotal.

McConville said the dispute began kindling “when one of their kids called Alex for foot-faulting twice, points that Alex conceded because he didn’t know the rules. Even Djokovic foot-faults sometimes. Your opponents can’t summarily take points from you, whether foot faults or line calls are at issue, though a coach can be summoned to act as an umpire after two warnings.”

“We were down 3-4 at that point. Westhampton’s team had won four in a row after going down 0-3. Then we went up 5-4, and they tied it at 5-5. We were up 6-5, and they were about to serve, when their coach, after seeing that Alex was not wearing a uniform shirt when he removed his sweatshirt during the changeover, stopped the match. He had a tennis shirt on, and it was our colors, maroon and gray. . . . His players wanted to play it out, but their coach said they had no choice. All the Westhampton kids were great, by the way.”

Later, McConville, the head pro at the Hampton Racquet Club, who is in his first year coaching East Hampton High’s team, said he checked the Section XI rules, only to find a requirement that a player “must have appropriate attire.”

East Hampton won Monday’s match at Ross by a score of 7-0, all in straight sets, the most notable result being Weseley and Jamie Fairchild’s 6-0, 7-5 win at first doubles versus Ross’s top two singles players, Rainier Bernard and Jensen Rowen. Kevin Snyder, Ross’s coach, said he had made the pairing so Bernard and Rowen could qualify for doubles play in the postseason.

Other Bonac winners were Jonny De Groot over Sunny Guo at first singles, Ravi MacGurn over Alex Saunders at number-two, Louchheim over Alonso Monroy at three, and Jaedon Glasstein over Jackson LaRose at four. Besides Weseley and Fairchild, Matthew McGovern and Miles Clark won at second doubles over Tim Kuo and Torres Zheng, and Brad Drubych and Medler won at third doubles over Richard Wu and Rammara Kishitani.

Getting back to the Westhampton match, Westhampton’s Danny Tocco defeated De Groot 6-1, 7-5 at first singles; Josh Kaplan defeated MacGurn 6-4, 6-4 at second singles; Louchheim defeated Andre Insalaco 6-2, 6-3 at third singles, and Glasstein defeated Juke Ongania 6-0, 6-4 at fourth singles. 

At first doubles, McGovern and Clark, who are freshmen, defeated Westhampton’s Daniel Caputo and Adam Sherca 6-3, 6-1, and, at third doubles, Westhampton’s Pierce Rosen-Keith and Julian Buchen defeated John Jimenez and Julian Pesce 6-4, 6-0.

McConville was missing his fifth (Drubych) and sixth (Fairchild) players that day, and thus “had to mix and match in doubles.” Jimenez is 11th and Pesce 12th on the team’s ladder.