Stabile-Volpe Duo Earn Top Spot In Division IV Doubles Tournament

Sandro Volpe and Bobby Stabile slammed down a statement win Monday.

The No. 2 doubles team out of Westhampton Beach blew past every opponent in the Division IV tennis bracket last weekend — dropping at most two sets per match — and capped things off with a 6-1, 6-0 win over Mattituck’s Kevin Koch and Tommy McGunnigle for the championship title.

“We made a couple of mistakes, but we came together,” said junior Bobby Stabile, who, winning the tournament last year with Andre Insalaco, earned his second straight division crown. “We played pretty consistently, and it’s amazing to win this twice in a row.”

After a first-round bye, the duo bested Southampton’s Charlie Davis and Yassine Boukaiss, 6-0, 6-2, and Southold’s Quincy Brigham and Jaden Olsen, 6-2, 6-0, before taking down East Hampton’s Armando Rangel and Dane Schwalb, 6-2, 6-0.

Volpe, a senior, said he liked how he and Stabile entered each match with nothing but confidence.

“We played well seeing a new opponent, and we handled that well the whole tournament — any new team we saw we molded our play to beat them,” he said. “We had a few hiccups, but we pulled through.”

The pair had solid serves early, and despite a few double faults by Volpe late, the team rebounded fast with each player smashing a few volleys for points from the net to seal the victory.

“Everyone makes mistakes, and you have to put it behind you,” said Volpe, who finished second to Stabile and Insalaco last year, playing then with Anthony Agudelo. “In tennis, you can’t hold onto those errors — you need to let those things go or you’ll mess yourself up for the entire match.”

“We put the ball away when we needed to,” Stabile added. “My partner is amazing, so I think we’ll go pretty far.”

The junior and his Hurricanes teammate are looking to make a deep run in the upcoming Suffolk County tournament — looking toward a state tournament berth. The pair think they have what it takes to get there.

“Our play styles are similar, and we’ve come to be really good friends,” Volpe said, “so I’m happy to be playing with Bobby.”

Westhampton Beach head coach Matt Reed said his No. 1 tandem has only improved with each match.

“Right from the beginning you could see they meshed very well together. They communicate, move together well — the whole season their connection has only gotten stronger,” he said. “You always expect to see nerves in the finale, but right from the beginning they broke early, and a 6-0, 6-1 win is a pretty big statement going into counties.”

Volpe and Stabile will compete in the Suffolk County doubles tournament this weekend. It begins Friday, May 20, at 9 a.m. at Smithtown East High School. Joining them will be No. 1 singles standout Gavin Vander Schaaf, a junior who edged East Hampton eighth-grader Jagger Cohen, 6-3, 6-4, in the consolation finals for third place.

Singles players Giancarlo Volpe, Theo Grellet-Aumont and Anthony Agudelo also competed last weekend, with Grellet-Aumont, a sophomore, making it out of the first round with a 6-0, 6-0 sweep of William Floyd’s Eric DiGiacomo. All Hurricanes participated in the tournament, actually, with the doubles team of senior Jake Zaffuto and sophomore Max Buchen making it to the quarterfinals, where they lost to the No. 1-seeded doubles duo of East Hampton sophomores Miguel Garcia and Cameron Mitchell. Garcia and Mitchell advanced to the quarterfinals over Westhampton Beach’s other doubles team of junior Ashton Lundborg and freshman Alessandro Imundi. Juniors Christian Gladd and Daniel Gosnell topped Mattituck’s identical twins of Ben and Sam Dufton, 6-4, 6-1, in the first round, but deferred to their opponents.

Hampton Bays senior Noah Sanabria beat Ross School’s Nicolas Sanchez, but fell to eventual second-place singles finisher Ray Hudaka, an eighth-grader out of Shoreham-Wading River. And Hampton Bays junior Israel Pulla fell to Southampton senior Luke Sacconaghi, 6-2, 6-1, in the opening round.