Having swept through the regular season and various Section III team and individual tournaments, it surprised no one that girls tennis stars from Christian Brothers Academy and Fayetteville-Manlius would have central roles in last week’s sectional state qualifier at Drumlins.
Both the Brothers and Hornets are well-represented when the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships get underway this Saturday morning at 9 a.m.
F-M had the top-seeded doubles team of Katerina Atallah and Maggie Bonomo. In the first two rounds, Atallah and Bonomo dropped just one game in four sets against Grace Lesselroth-Katie Lesselroth (Westhill) and Coralee Everett-Morgan-Shae Gondeck (Chittenango).
In that same half of the bracket, CBA’s Grace Coyne and Mikayla Santulli were on the brink of first-round elimination, but somehow made it back to stun F-M’s Patrice Calancie and Martha Welker 0-6, 7-6 (7-1), 6-1. Another three-set match followed as Coyne and Santulli beat Juliana Cavanagh and Anna Hood (Oneida) 6-4, 1-6, 6-2.
Fortunately, the semifinals were not until Thursday, giving Coyne and Santulli a chance to rest, but Atallah and Bonomo still proved too good in a 6-2, 6-1 decision, clinching a berth for the F-M pair that got to the state tournament quarterfinals a year ago.
Safely back in the state tournament, Attalah and Bonomo beat West Genesee’s Mikayla Mannara and Katie Viau 6-3, 6-2 in the finals, while in the third-place match Coyne and Santulli were denied a chance to reach the state tournament by Oneida’s Brianna Laureti and Lauren Skibitski in a 6-1, 6-4 decision.
F-M had a third doubles team on hand, with Maddy Drapeau and Diana Polovick taking a 6-2, 6-0 loss to Mannara and Viau. Manlius-Pebble Hill’s team of Lily Grenis and Grace Morrow prevailed, 6-2, 6-1, over Watertown IHC’s Georgia and Josie Barton before a 6-0, 6-0 loss to Laureti and Skibitski in the quarterfinals.
Meanwhile, on the singles side, CBA’s Rena Steele was unstoppable in the first two rounds, getting 6-0, 6-0 shutouts over Indian River’s Alexzha Garcia and Liverpool’s Julie Schewe, the latter of whom had beaten MPH’s Anna Szombathy 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 in the first round.
As that went on, Steele’s teammate, Gieselle Vlassis, got through a 6-4, 6-1 match with Erin McCarthy (Central Square) while F-M’s Anna Manta swept Utica-Notre Dame’s Emily Lyga 6-1, 6-2.
In the quarterfinals, Vlassis survived a tough first set and beat Manta 7-5, 6-1, while CBA’s Grace DelPino, having beaten Tabitha Talbot (Indian River) 6-2, 6-1, ran into Emily Lyga’s sister, Ellen, and lost, 6-0, 6-2.
The semifinals would determine two of the three state championship bids. Steele secured one of them by topping Ellen Lyga 6-1, 6-1, while Vlassis couldn’t keep up with New Hartford’s Sarah Corasanti before taking a 6-3, 6-1 loss.
Though Steele lost the final to Corasanti 6-3, 7-5, she was still going to the state tournament – and so was Vlassis, who secured the last berth when she rolled past Ellen Lyga in straight sets 6-2, 6-1.
