By Five Boro Sports
Cindie Boosin had just lost a heartbreaker. She and partner Tealle Hunkus were a few points away from winning their first match in an AVP main draw. But Boosin called the match “great.”
“There were at least four things we need to fix with ourselves,” she said. “… If we start doing those things right, it’s a whole different game.”
Boosin and Hunkus came so close to advancing. The 26th-seeded team lost to No. 23 Ashley Groothuis/Christal Morrison 21-17, 19-21, 15-13 Friday morning in the AVP Coney Island Open contender’s bracket. Boosin, a Forest Hills native, has made three main draws with Hunkus this season.
This was just another step in the process of achieving her goal: to be a main draw regular in the AVP. Boosin moved to Manhattan Beach, Calif., a year and a half ago to help realize her dream.
“It’s happening so much faster than I ever expected,” she said.
It almost kicked into lightspeed earlier Friday morning. In their first-round match, Boosin and Hunkus took No. 7 Brittany Hochevar/Jennifer Fopma, one of the hottest teams on tour, to the limit before falling 19-21, 21-15, 15-8.
“I thought we were going to beat them,” said Boosin, a Francis Lewis grad. “I think they’re an amazing team. I think they’re phenomenal. I have so much respect for them. I was up at 4 a.m. this morning thinking, how am I going to do this?”
Hochevar was impressed with Boosin’s play, but said she and Hunkus need to diversify their game, mostly with more powerful swings and better serving, to be a regular main-draw team.
“She’s crafty, she’s clever, she’s really athletic,” Hochevar said. “She had my number there for awhile as far as digging. She dug me a handful of times.”
Boosin’s scrappy play was apparent in both matches. When her opponents least expect it, she’ll shovel the ball over the net for a kill.
“She had that knuckle shot back in high school, too,” said former Coach Arnie Rosenbaum, who was in Coney Island watching one of his star pupils.
Boosin was on the first Patriots team under Rosenbaum to make the PSAL city championship match in 1999. Even though she’s just 5-feet-6, Boosin, who is in the Francis Lewis sports hall of fame, played middle for that squad.
“We were like the midget squad — nobody over 5-6,” Rosenbaum said with a laugh. “She helped start the program going.”
Boosin was actually a beach player before she came to Lewis, so she had a lot of the necessary skills. They just needed to be honed and she credits Rosenbaum with much of her development.
“Mr. Rosenbaum takes dirt and turns it into diamonds,” Boosin said. “I wasn’t a good player until he got me.”
She has certainly come a long way since then and is only getting better. Boosin will head back to California this week with the satisfaction of getting even closer to her ultimate goal.
“You play the main draw and you want to win, but you never expect to win,” she said. “But we’re doing it. We’re doing it. We’re doing it so much sooner than we should have been.”
