While the Baldwinsville girls tennis team was in the midst of its hard-fought match against Auburn last Wednesday afternoon, major news broke elsewhere.
Namely, it was West Genesee defeating Fayetteville-Manlius 4-3, ending the Hornets’ epochal 329-match win streak that stretched all the way back to 1993. Many different times, B’ville had come close to toppling F-M, but could not quite pull it off.
Now, the Hornets’ defeat gave everyone in the Section III Class AA rankings attempting to dethrone F-M some real hope, including B’ville, who put together its own strong effort to earn a 5-2 victory over Auburn.
Kahlei Reisinger, playing first singles, worked her way past the Maroons’ Julia Wagner 7-5, 6-2, while Jennifer Stone fell to Lauryn Husby 6-0, 6-1 and Maddie Quilter had a 6-2, 6-2 defeat to Jenna Jarman.
Where B’ville took over was in doubles play. Natalie Kot, paired with Bridget Braun, handled Katherine Brundage and Celia Mattie 6-1, 6-4, and that was the closest of the four matches.
Catherine Cassidy and Marissa Tommarello shut out Mallory Colella and Lindsay Jarman 6-0, 6-0, with Amanda Coogan and Gabby Fiello rolling past Abbie Connors and Anna Streeter 6-0, 6-1. Taylor Slink and Lauren Dusse were just as good in a 6-2, 6-0 win over Grace Bachman and Jaime Whitford.
It was no small irony that, on a hot Friday afternoon, B’ville was set get its own shot at the West Genesee side that had ended F-M’s streak, and catch them coming off its own win over Auburn the day before, a hard-fought 4-3 decision that required Samantha Heyn and Marisa Joyce to win a third-set tie-breaker in the first doubles match to pull it out.
In short, everything was in line for the Bees to cool the Wildcats down – but it got so hot that, by mutual agreement, the two teams postponed the match until later in the season. B’ville is set to face Cicero-North Syracuse this Friday afternoon.
