Just as in seasons past, West Genesee’s girls tennis team chose not to take part in the Section III Class A team tournament – but that didn’t mean the Wildcats would be absent from the other, more important tournament on the sectional docket.
In the sectional Division I tournament that concluded on Monday afternoon, the Wildcats sent both of its top doubles teams – one featuring Samantha Heyn and Marisa Joyce, the other featuring Taylor Ginestro and Kayla Llanos – to the finals.
By doing so, that quartet all advanced to next week’s sectional state qualifier at Drumlins, where 16 doubles sides will battle for three berths in the state tournament, set for the first weekend of November at Tri-City Tennis Center in suburban Albany.Play begins next Monday in the qualifier and will conclude on Oct. 22.
Heyn and Joyce were the top seeds in the Division I bracket, and took down Shannon Fullam and Olivia Wojnovich (Fayetteville-Manlius) 6-0, 6-1 in the opening round. A 6-3, 6-0 romp over Baldwisnville’s pair of Lauren Dusse and Taylor Slink sent Heyn and Joyce to the semifinals, where it beat another F-M pair, Madison Jordan and Shirley Zhang, 6-2, 6-0.
Meanwhile, Ginestro and Llanos, the no. 2 seed, got yet another win over an F-M duo, Marissa Broddus and Catarina Westergaard, 6-4, 6-4 just to make it out of the first round. Then, to clinch their berth in the state qualifier, Ginestro and Llanos had to go to three sets to beat B’ville’s Gabby Fiello and Emma Funicello 6-1, 4-6, 6-1.
That match, along with a 6-3. 6-4 semifinal win over B’ville’s Bridgett Brown and Natalie Kot, took a toll, but when Ginestro and Llanos met up with their WG teammates, Heyn and Joyce, they won the first set 6-4, only to see Heyn and Joyce settle down and take the next two sets by comfortable 6-1 and 6-3 margins.
Earlier in the tournament, Mary Frontale and Mikayla Mannara won in the first round over Liverpool’s Alexandra Ioaniddis and Katelyn Nguyen 6-4, 6-4, and won the first set over Jordan and Zhang in the quarterfinals, too, moving within two games of victory in the third set before the F-M pair pulled out a 4-6, 6-1, 7-5 victory.
Three different WG players were part of the sectional Division I singles bracket, but none of them got out of the opening round.
Of them, Kelsey Shanahan had the closet call, winning the first set 6-4 and losing the second set 6-1 before dropping a 15-13 third set to Cicero-North Syracuse’s Brooke Murphy. Sarah Schahczenski ran into Auburn’s Jenna Jarman and lost, 6-1, 6-0, with Shannon Marlatt falling to F-M’s Kristina Liu 6-1, 6-1.
None of the trio of girls who beat Shanahan, Schahczenski or Marlatt made it past the quarterfinals, and ultimately top seed Kahlei Reisigner (B’ville) beat Lauryn Husby (Auburn) 6-4, 6-1 to repeat as individual sectional champion.
