Just one more game claimed here, or there, and the Baldwinsville girls tennis team would have ended the 21-year reign of Fayetteville-Manlius as Section III Class A champions.
But the Bees could not quite get to that summit, dropping a painful 4-3 decision to the Hornets in a tense, exciting sectional final last Tuesday amid warm, windy conditions at Mott Courts in Utica.
B’ville and F-M had met twice early in the season, on Aug. 28 and Sept. 15. Both of them ended in 4-3 defeats for the Bees. The two sides expected another encounter in the sectional final since West Genesee (who had ended F-M’s 329-match win streak on Sept. 3) again chose not to compete in the team portion of the sectional tournament.
Many of the Bees and Hornets had also competed the day before in the sectional Division I singles and doubles tournaments at Auburn, so they had little time to rest before their championship showdown.
Both sides easily claimed one singles point, as Kahlei Reisinger put away F-M’s Madison Jordan 6-0, 6-1, but Natalie Kot lost to Kiristina Liu 6-2, 6-0.
Bridgett Brown came from behind to beat Katerina Atallah 3-6, 6-4, 6-2, and it left the Bees needing to win just two of the four doubles matches.
Gabby Fiello and Emma Funicello battled past Marissa Broddus and Catarina Westergaard 6-4, 7-5, but the Bees dropped a point when Katie Cassidy and Amanda Coogan lost to Mary Trop and Abbey Welker 6-0, 6-0
Maddie Quilter and Jennifer Stone, after losing the first set 6-4 to Shannon Fullam and Olivia Wojnovich won a second-set tie-breaker to even the match, 7-6.. Regrouping, Fullam and Wojnovich beat Quilter and Stone by that same 6-4 margin in the third set.
Even more drama surrounded the match between B’ville’s Lauren Dusse and Taylor Slink and F-M’s Maggie Bonomo and Shirley Zhang. Winning a first-set tie-breaker, 7-6, Dusse and Slink lost the second set 6-4, and the thirds set went to a tie-breaker, too, before Bonomo and Zhang claimed the pulled out the match 6-7, 6-4, 7-6 and secured another championship for the Hornets.
One day earlier, Reisinger earned her second consecutive sectional Division I singles championship and remained unbeaten in 2014.
Reisinger, the top seed, never dropped a set in the tournament. After a first-round bye, she shut out Cicero-North Syracuse’s Brooke Murphy 6-0, 6-0 in the round of 16 on Oct. 10, though that had much to do with Murphy going through a 15-13 third set with West Genesee’s Kelsey Shanahan in the round before.
Then, when she reached the quarterfinals, Reisinger rolled past Central Square’s Brianna Grimes 6-0, 6-1, followed by a semifinal where F-M’s Maggie Bonomo got overwhelmed, too, in a 6-0, 6-1 decision.
The only real stress Reisinger encountered came in the first set of the Division I final against Auburn’s Lauryn Husby, who made it close, but Reisinger still won 6-4, and went on to roll through the second set 6-1 to claim the title again.
Elsewhere in singles, Stone won her opening-round match over Watertown’s Marissa Petros 6-2, 6-1, only to fall to Auburn’s Julia Wagner 6-0, 6-1. Wagner went on to reach the semifinals, losing to her teammate, Husby, but advancing to the state qualifier.
In doubles play, Brown and Kot would get to the semifinals and earn a state qualifying berth. Brown and Kot beat Anna Baggett and Meaghan Reilly (Liverpool) 6-2, 6-2, and then took out Rana Al-Salameh and Krysta Broeker (Oswego) 6-0, 6-1 in the quarterfinals before a 6-3, 6-4 semifinal defeat to West Genesee’s tandem of Taylor Ginestro and Kayla Llanos.
As for Fiello and Funicello, they beat another Oswego pair, Lauren Boshart and Hannah Broadwell, 6-2, 6-1, and then pushed Ginestro and Llanos to a third set before absorbing a 6-4, 4-6, 6-1 defeat.
Back at the top of the bracket, Dusse and Slink easily handled C-NS’s Alyssa Forte and Elena Iaconis 6-0, 6-1, but lost to WG’s top-seeded pair of Samantha Heyn and Marisa Joyce 6-3, 6-0 in the quarterfinals. Heyn and Joyce would beat Ginestro and Llanos in the Division I doubles final.
