With August ending and September starting, it meant that the area’s six high school girls tennis teams would all get underway.
Fayetteville-Manlius, a perennial powerhouse, would host its second annual Coaches vs. Cancer Tournament Tuesday afternoon to begin its season, with Jamesville-DeWitt and Christian Brothers Academy part of the field with Cazenovia.
The Hornets lost a string of top seniors, including Kristina Liu, but returned its top doubles team of Maggie Bonomo and Katerina Atallah, who would prevail in one of six doubles divisions in this unique tournament.
In first doubles, Bonomo and Atallah claimed the final over CBA’s Rena Steele and Grace DelPino 6-0, 6-2. Moving to second doubles, the Brothers came out on top with Grace Coyne and Mikayla Santuli surviving an epic 6-2, 4-6, 11-9 battle with F-M’s Maddy Drapeau and Anna Manta.
CBA won again in third doubles when Gieselle Vlassis and Grace Catalano, having survived three sets with F-M’s Diana and Keara Polovick 6-3, 5-7, 10-7, had an easier time defeating Cazenovia’s Annika Bruno and Lizzy Drake 6-1, 6-1.
Pulling back even in fourth doubles, the Hornets had Patrice Calancie and Martha Welker blank CBA’s Isabella Mead and Aubrey Mills 6-0, 6-0, while in fifth doubles J-D finally got someone in the finals, only to have Lily Fleet and Olivia Frison-DeAngelis fall to F-M’s Cassie Wojtasiewicz and Rachel Liu 6-3, 6-2.
The sixth and final doubles division also went in F-M’s favor as Phoebe Wang and Emily Chou paired up, defeating CBA’s Annalise DeRoberts and Emma Costello 6-1, 6-2, though of course the real winner overall was the American Cancer Society, who received the funds raised by all four teams.
