The Steamboat Springs boys tennis team had its first look at the season ahead during a six-team tournament in Vail on Friday and Saturday where the team came home with the second-place title. 

The tournament took place on clay courts, a surface uncommon in Steamboat Springs, and consisted of eight-game pro-sets, meaning players played just one set to eight games with a 10-point tiebreak at 7-7. 

Steamboat team captain Wiley Cotter and the Sailors No. 3 singles team of Hank Ince and Collin Mudgett-Furgueson led the charge for Steamboat, winning four of five matches on the weekend. 

The Sailors found themselves winning four of five matches with the lone loss coming in a 7-0 sweep against Colorado Academy. Steamboat defeated Vail, 4-3; Durango, 6-1; Aspen, 5-2; and Basalt, 6-1 along the way. 

Steamboat coach Jason Scicchitano was happy to see the boys earn second but said he saw plenty of things he wanted to prioritize in practice at the start of this week. 

On Wednesday night, the Sailors hosted their first match of the season, inviting the recently defeated Vail team to the Steamboat Tennis Center. In six-game sets on a traditional hardcourt surface, Vail earned its revenge and took care of Steamboat 6-1. 

“Ultimately when the sum of the errors exceeds the well-executed shots, the result is inevitable,” Scicchitano said of some of the matches he saw Wednesday. 

The lone victor for Steamboat was Ibrokhim Nuriddinov in the No. 3 singles match. His serve was broken twice early in the first set to go down 4-1. 

He began to mirror his opponent and crashed the net when necessary to go on a streak and win four straight games to make it 5-4. Eventually finding himself in a tiebreak for the set, Nuriddinov dominated the first several points to go up 6-2 and get within one point of a first-set victory. 

With nothing to lose, his Vail opponent fought back to tie things at six apiece, but Nuriddinov managed to put things away 9-7. The Vail opponent did not give up, however, defeating Nuriddinov handily, 6-2 in the second set. 

In the 10-point tiebreaking set, Nuriddinov got to a quick 9-3 lead but took six match points to put his opponent away for the 10-8 win in the third set. 

Steamboat will be back in tournament mode this weekend in Grand Junction with matches on Friday and Saturday. 

Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024
Vail 6, Steamboat Springs 1
No. 1 Singles — Vail Christian def. Liam Siefken, SS, 6-1, 6-0.
No. 2 Singles — Vail Christian def. Wiley Cotter, SS, 6-1, 6-0.
No. 3 Singles — Ibrokhim Nuriddinov, SS, def. Vail Christian,7-6, 2-6, 10-8. 
No. 1 Doubles — Vail Christian def. Damien Dobson and Matthew MacEntee, SS, 6-2, 6-4. 
No. 2 Doubles — Vail Christian def. Garrett Moyer and Alec Buchler, SS, 4-6, 6-3, 10-7.
No. 3 Doubles — Vail Christian def. Collin Mudgett-Furgueson and Hank Ince, SS, 6-0, 6-0. 
No. 4 Doubles — Vail Christian def. Tesher Feinberg and Coen Dore, SS, 6-4, 7-5.