‘Super sweet’ AC Flora boys complete championship tennis sweep
It’s been quite a year for the AC Flora tennis program.
In November, the Falcon girls won the Class 4A state championship. On Saturday, the AC Flora boys made it a sweep of the titles this year with a 6-0 win over Bishop England at the Cayce Tennis Center.
The championship is the second straight for the Falcon boys, who completed back-to-back unbeaten seasons and third for the program overall in less than 365 days.
It is the boys program’s sixth state title and fourth under head coach Amy Martin, who also coaches the girls team. The Falcons have won 48 straight matches dating back to last season.
“That is super sweet,” Martin said. “To go with the girls who were here supporting the boys and then the boys supporting them in November, that speaks volumes about the tennis program that they were there for each other. Nobody expects it from a local Midlands, but it can be done, and it was done.”
AC Flora is the first program since Oceanside Collegiate, a public charter school in Mount Pleasant, to win boys and girls tennis titles in the same year. The last traditional public school to do it was Spartanburg in the 2018-19 school year.
Martin thought the tone for the season started in the opening tournament in Florence, in which the Falcons defeated defending 5A Division II champion Myrtle Beach, Class 5A Riverside, Charlotte Latin (NC) and another 5A program, Ashley Ridge, to win the FTA Florence Invitational.
“When we finished up in Florence and played four tough matches then went to the Upstate in mid-March and played three tough matches,” Martin said. “I think something clicked after that weekend that we had to keep it going, keep it going.”
It was the second straight year AC Flora faced Bishop England, the winningest boys program in SC history in the final. But this year’s match didn’t have the drawn-out process of last year’s, which had to be finished at another location because of weather.
The Falcons didn’t drop a set and were dominant from the jump, clinching the match in just over an hour after singles wins by No. 4 Will Hewitt, No. 5 Will Bryan and No. 3 Vijay Sinha. AC Flora clinched the title with a 6-1, 6-1 win from the doubles team of Sam McCormick and Reid Denmark.
“I just think everyone on the team was on their A game and playing as well as they could,” Hewitt said. “With everyone doing that, I feel like we can beat anybody.”
No. 1 Silas Cecchini battled back in the second set of his match to win, 6-2, 7-6 (7-2 in tiebreaker). Jude Smyth, one of the team’s two senior captains, finished things off with a 6-3, 6-4 win.
The second straight title is especially sweet for Smyth and Hewitt, who had brothers win titles in the program previously, but now they leave AC Flora with a pair of championships.
“It means everything to us to say we can go out (as seniors) and go back-to-back,” Hewitt said. “Now we can say we got more than our brothers, which is pretty cool.”
