When the dust settled from the Section III Division II and IV girls tennis championship tournaments on Columbus Day weekend, players from Jamesville-DeWitt and Manlius-Pebble Hill both had first-place finishes secured.
Just as importantly, any finish in the top four meant that these Red Rams and Trojans would make their way to Drumlins’ indoor courts early this week to play in the sectional state qualifier, fighting for berth in the Nov. 1-3 state tournament at Tri-City Tennis Center in Latham, near Albany.
In Division II doubles at Cortland, J-D’s team of Jungyun Kim and Maya Pollock would finish on top. They got started by beating Katie Farkouh and Morgan Joyce (New Hartford) in the first round, a bit of payback for the Spartans ousting the Red Rams in the Class B team tournament semifinals.
Then Kim and Pollock came from behind for a 3-6, 7-5, 6-4 quarterfinal win over Claire Mancarella and Kylie Chesebro (Oneida), before meeting another New Hartford pair, Rachel Madden and Emily Steates, in the semifinals and took that match 6-4, 6-1. Madden and Steates had beaten J-D’s Natalie Alweis and Julie Harrison 6-4, 6-0 in the quartefinals to keep them from the state qualifier.
One more match remained, the final against Oneida’s Samantha Lusher and Lexi Skibitski. Unlike the previous Oneida match, it took just two sets for Kim and Pollock to win the title 6-3, 6-4.
While Alweis and Harrison went 1-1, Kim and Mai Dreisen did the same, beating Doreen Adjei and Paige Leonard (Indian River) in the opening round before Lusher and Skibitski beat them 6-0, 6-3.
Meanwhile, Elise Catania gave the Red Rams a second-place finish in Division I singles. She stopped Emily Blunt (Mexico) 6-1, 6-0 and topped Oneida’s Connie Froass 6-4, 6-1 in the quarterfinals to secure a state qualifier berth.
Not stopping there, though, Catania routed Whitesboro’s Sara Palczynski 6-1, 6-1, setting up a final against New Hartford’s Sarah Corasanti, who proved too tough, prevailing over Catania 6-2, 6-3.
Maggie Mannion beat Carthage’s Meaghan Paige 6-4, 6-3, but her dream of a spot in the state qualifier got stopped by Indian River’s Gabrielle Belles in a 6-7, 6-4, 6-1 defeat. Julia Skeval lost in the opening round to Oneida’s Brianna Laureti 6-4, 7-5.
As for MPH, who competed in Division IV at Mott Courts in Utica, it saw Grace Del Pino work her way to the sectional singles championship and two others – Elizabeth Clarkson and Olivia Sheppard – make it to the state qualifier, too.
Del Pino routed Lindsay Cornacchia (Westmoreland) 6-0, 6-0 in the opening round, and then won a 6-4, 6-2 decision over Watertown IHC’s Emma Renzi in the quarterfinals. That put her up in the semifinals against Sheppard, who had taken out Clinton’s Olivia Kodsy 6-1, 6-3 and Pulaski’s Kelly Bushell 6-1, 6-1 in the early rounds.
Continuing her inspired play, Del Pino beat Sheppard in straight sets, 6-2, 6-4, and now would draw Clarkson, the top seed, in the championship round.
To get there, Clarkson, who had a first-round bye, beat Bailey Hyrb (Westmoreland) 6-0, 6-1 and then stopped Watertown IHC’s Elena Altieri 6-3, 6-1 in the semifinals.
But Del Pino did not fear her teammate, winning the first set of the final 6-4. Clarkson won the second set 6-3, only to see Del Pino take charge in the final set and pull out a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 victory.
Meanwhile, in doubles, Sophie Novak and Anna Szombathy finished second. They earned their state qualifying meet berth with a 6-1, 6-2 quarterfinal win over Bishop Grimes’ Maria Gronau and Jordan Vaught.
Then Novak and Szombathy beat Sauquoit Valley’s Isabella Arrigo and Kira Baran in a tough 7-5, 7-5 semifinal match, only to run into another Sauquoit pair, Ella and Tanya Brutsky, in the finals, who won the first-set tie-breaker and went on to prevail 7-6, 6-1.
Another Bishop Grimes team, Gabriella Perla and Elizabeth Wolaver, won 6-1, 6-3 over Caitlin Cherpak and Sydney Pavlik (Clinton) to get to the quarterfinals, where the Brutsky sisters would stop them by similar scores of 7-6 and 6-2 that they would have against Novak and Szombathy.
CBA’s Allison Croucher and Sarah Roberts made it to the semifinals in Division III before a 6-1, 6-2 loss to Skaneateles’ Makenzi Herbst and Grace Magee. Anna Kambhampaty and Rati Saini lost in the opening round, while in singles Hannah Werner lost in the quarterfinals to Lucy Connor (Cazenovia) 6-3, 6-3 and Mikayla Santuli fell to Skaneateles’ Louisa Morrow 6-4, 6-4.
