Fresh off winning the District XI Class 3A Doubles Championship, the Stone brothers will now turn their attention towards playing on the commonwealth’s biggest stage as the PIAA State Tournament gets underway.
Senior Nick and sophomore Chris Stone along with head coach Robert Dragon will depart from Emmaus High School at 11 a.m. on Friday as the top doubles teams in the state converge on the Hershey Racquet Club.
The Hornets tandem, both of whom are right-handed, will be in action in the 16-team, single elimination format at 2 p.m. today taking on juniors Francis DeLucia and Vincent Strenge, the District One runners-up from Pennsbury.
“Nick and Chris have been practicing for the past two weeks at Brookside Country Club playing a match every day against players that are home from college,” said the Hornets first year coach by phone on Thursday afternoon. “They’ve played together for most of their lives so they’re excited for the opportunity to compete.”
The duo received the automatic berth in states after claiming gold at districts back on May 1 at Lehigh University with a two-set sweep over Freedom seniors Noah Rodburg and Eric Wu 6-3 and 6-2.
On their way to the championship, the brothers breezed through the tournament without dropping a set in wins over Patrick Bacolo/Chase Skutches of Nazareth 6-0, 6-1; Jack Chu/Jacky Zhang of Parkland 6-1, 6-1 and Kevin Yao/Manav Patel of Parkland 6-4, 6-2.
As a freshman, Chris Stone has the experience of playing out in Hershey after competing in last year’s singles championship, while for Nick, this will be his first opportunity.
“We’re going to fight like there’s no tomorrow competing out there,” said Dragon. “You can go out there and over hit, but you just need to play smart and figure which of your opponents is the weakest.
“The toughest round is always the first. The rule is not to get too high or too low.”
The first round of the tournament begins at 2 p.m. on Friday with the quarterfinals at 6:30 p.m. The semifinals continue on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. with the finals and third place matches set for 3:30 p.m.
There will be a new doubles champion this year after the Palmyra twins – Aidan and Tyler graduated a year ago. The tandem has captured the last three championships.
The Lehigh Valley has had recent success at the state tournament with Liberty’s Luke Appleman and Roman Farhad taking fourth place a year ago.
Both Nick and Chris were part of an Emmaus team that went 11-3 in the EPC and 15-4 overall. In the District XI 3A team tournament, the Hornets defeated Nazareth 3-2 before falling to rival Parkland 4-1 in the semifinals.
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