- November 5, 2024
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PONTE VEDRA -- When Matanzas boys’ tennis coach Keith Lagocki made the announcement that the Pirates – trailing Ponte Vedra 3-2 in a playoff to decide the 3A-4 district champion – would concede the doubles round, most players nodded lock-neck with the company line.
Matanzas would still qualify for regionals (albeit as a lower seed), but they’d do so with a full ammo cupboard. Talented freshman Jason Legall would return after participating in a tournament abroad. Cookie Arrascue wouldn’t have to play with a crack in his Aero Pro Drive racket. And another type of crack – these the fractures on St. Augustine’s hard court surface -- wouldn’t force a venue change, long layoff, and a second warm-up session.
Still, one player – senior Nick Petrillo -- seemed to grapple with the news more than his teammates. He quickly and quietly collected his gear and set off alone for the white transport vans with the Flagler Schools logo painted on the passenger doors.
“Honestly, I’m probably not going to play tennis too much after high school, so I did really want to play,” Petrillo said. “I guess I do feel kind of deflated.”
After two days of district play culminated on April 3, Ponte Vedra and Matanzas were deadlocked at 14 points. A tiebreaker was arranged at a neutral site (St. Augustine) for Friday.
That’s when things got weird.
The courts at St. Augustine were cracked, no doubt. Some of the cracks were large enough to fit a quarter, and some altered the elevation of the surface. And that, according to Lagocki, was too much.
“There is an inherent risk in sports, but when it’s obvious that there’s a flawed surface, you don’t want to put your kids out there and take a chance of them getting hurt,” he said.
After contentious debate on Friday afternoon, Lagocki and Sharks coach Weller Evans agreed to wait on a ruling from a FHSAA official. Emails were sent and calls placed, but there was no response. After 25 minutes, the coaches agreed to move the match to Ponte Vedra.
“I knew coming here wasn’t going to be much better in terms of the environment, it was definitely a hostile crowd,” Lagocki said. “That made a difference for one of our kids, and that’s basically why things went down the way they did.”
The match he was referring to pitted freshman Sidney Moon against Ponte Vedra’s Eric Gravelle. Moon went down a break early, and tempers flared due to borderline calls made by the players. Evans and a Matanzas assistant stepped in to judge the final few games, but Moon didn’t recover, falling 8-6. The loss all but dashed the Pirates hopes at a districts win. Matanzas will now travel to Gainesville High School on Tuesday for the first round of regionals, with a victory setting up a rematch at Ponte Vedra on Thursday.
Petrillo cashed in on his singles match, downing Ponte Vedra’s Ethan Van Voorhis 8-6. Davey Roberts, a five-star recruit according to tennisrecruiting.net, beat the Sharks’ Hank Hill for the second time in as many days.
The day “was interesting,” Roberts said. “It more started out with drama than anything else. Tensions were pretty high, just from districts and our pasts. Everyone was a little tight, especially me. I got off to a bad start.”
Petrillo – a six-time district champ in his own right – stayed upbeat when Roberts unseated him for the top spot in the lineup last season, and again this year when Legall’s arrival bumped him down to number three. He isn’t about to let one confounding afternoon spoil the closing chapters of his career.
“It’s part of being on a team, and personally I like tennis because it’s an individual sport, and you can only blame yourself if you lose,” he said, thumbing his blue district runner-up ribbon. “But it’ll be a nice break, and we’ll come back and be strong.”
