A full week of sunshine and warming temperatures allowed the Skaneateles girls tennis team to shake off the rust from the previous week’s inactivity and take over against several different OHSL Liberty division foes.
Yet no match was as important as Friday’s battle with archrival Marcellus, which proved close on many different fronts – but still saw the Lakers defeat the Mustangs 4-3.
Though Kaitlyn Ellison lost in first singles to Haley Randall 6-4, 7-5, Angela Krause and Olivia Gage made up for it, Krause rolling past Rickie Mixon 6-0, 6-1, while Gage turned back Megan Charles in a pair of 6-4 sets.
In a long doubles match, Makenzi Herbst and Grace Magee lost to Grace Hunt and Mary Kate McHale 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), while Maura McNeil and Maddy Pinkney took a 7-6 (7-5), 6-4 defeat to Audrey Cerrone and Tierney Clark.
Needing the other two points in doubles, Skaneateles got them thanks to Liz Belinski and Alaina Davis, who handled Rebekah Mullins and Genevieve Rao 6-4, 6-4, and the duo of Makenzie Keller and Julia Torrisi, who got past Alexandra Burrows and Katherine White 6-1, 7-6 (7-5).
In last Monday’s 7-0 shutout over Westhill, the Lakers dominated all of the matches. Gage began the singles push, handling Katie DeVeyra 6-1, 6-0. Ellison turned back Katherine Missert 6-0, 6-1, while Krause defeated Kalyna Parasczak by those exact same scores.
Herbst and Magee had a 6-0, 6-0 romp over Beth Kilory and Alyssa Zabel. Davis and Belinski didn’t give up games in their win over Hannah Lesselroth and Alyssa Wall, and neither did Keller and Alex Ditch and Makenzie Keller when beating Meaghen Burrows and Briana Linton 6-0, 6-0. McNeil and Pinkney did work a bit longer, but still rolled past Anna Frost and Rachel Zepetello 6-2, 6-3.
Two days later, the Lakers rolled past Manlius-Pebble Hill 6-1, nearly getting another shutout before Krause, in three sets, fell to Olivia Shepard 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, but it won all of the other matches in straight sets.
Ellison rolled past Elizabeth Clarkson 6-0, 6-2, with Gage getting a 6-1, 6-2 sweep over Caroline Blanck. Herbst and Magee battled to a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Julia Mettler-Grove and Sophie Novak, with Belinski and Davis beating Spencer Alexander and Ada Buniak 6-1, 6-3.
McNeil and Pinkney also won in doubles, stopping Annie Weiss and Lucy Zwigard 6-2, 6-2, while Keller and Julia Hearn had a 6-4, 6-0 sweep over Amina Kilpatrick and Kaylee Steiner.
