Though it was far from easy, Fayetteville-Manlius will have three girls tennis players making their way to the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championship tournament.
Sienna Susko, in singles, and the doubles team of Laurin Goldberg and Jessie Guarino, each earned the one victory they needed to advance in Wednesday’s second portion of the Section III state qualifier at Drumlins Country Club.
In the singles semifinals, Susko faced a familiar opponent – Baldwinsville’s Kahlei Reisinger, whom she beat twice during the season, both on Sept. 7 and in the sectional Division I tournament a month later. Each of those wins took three sets.
On this third occasion, though, Reisinger finally broke through, beating Susko 6-3, 6-3. As a result, Susko had to beat Jamesville-DeWitt’s Kyrin Pollock, who lost the other semifinal to Auburn’s Claire Minnoe 6-0, 6-0, in the consolation match to advance.
Pollock got off to the strong start, winning the first set 6-2. Here, though, Susko showed her determination, rallying to win the second and third sets by those same 6-2 margins to join Minnoe and Reisinger on the sectional state team.
Meanwhile, in doubles Goldberg and Guarino ran into B’ville’s top-seeded duo of Natalie Kot and Amari Pollard in the semifinals and lost a 6-3, 6-3 decision. So, like Susko, they had to win in the consolation final against Beaver River’s team of Abigail Cornell and Amanda Peters.
Without much difficulty, Goldberg and Guarino claimed that match, 6-1, 6-2, so they would join Kot and Pollard, plus West Genesee’s duo of Samantha Heyn and Marisa Joyce, as they all are heading to the state tournament, which starts Nov. 3 at Tri-City Tennis Center in Latham, near Albany.
