The area’s girls tennis teams had to play well in last week’s Section III division tournaments in order to advance to this week’s state qualifier at Drumlins, and players from Marcellus, West Genesee and Westhill all advanced. With the Mustangs’ Haley Randall emerging as the Division III singles champion.
Randall was the top seed, and never got seriously challenged. Only needing to make the semifinals to get to Drumlins, Randall did so with ease, handling Erica Byrne (Skaneateles) and Ava Gurney (Cazenovia) in a pair of 6-0, 6-0 matches last Wednesday at Utica’s Mott Courts to reach the semifinals.
Once play resumed on Thursday, so did Randall’s domination. In a 6-1, 6-0 romp, Randall topped Skaneateles’ Angela Krause, who had beaten Randall’s teammate, Rickie Mixon, 6-3, 6-2 in an earlier round, leading to a final against CBA’s Mikayla Santulli, which proved just as convincing as Randall beat Santulli 6-0 in the first set and 6-2 in the second set.
In Division III doubles, Westhill’s sister tandem of Cameron and Mackenzie Aiello held the no. 2 seed, and won their opening match over Sloane Nicoletti-Watson and Julie Simone (CBA) 6-2, 6-2. In the quarterfinals against Skylar Enos and Cecilia Caddo (Vernon-Verona-Sherrill), the Aiellos lost the first set, but then took over in a 4-6, 6-0, 6-0 victory.
Now assured of making the state qualifier, the Aiellos kept going with a 6-3, 6-0 semifinal win over Skaneateles’ Rachel Feeney and Julia Torrisi, but in the finals another Lakers tandem, Liz Belinski and Katelyn Ellison, proved too tough, beating the Aiellos 6-3, 6-3.
Westhill’s Katie DeVeyra and Katherine Missert, along with Jordan-Elbridge’s Annalise O’Brien were also in the field. O’Brien lost, 6-1, 6-0, to Gurney, with DeVeyra taking a 6-4, 7-5 defeat to Byrne and Missert rallying past Phoenix’s Gianna DeRoberts 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, only to fall to Chittenango’s Kelly Gloo 6-4, 6-3.
Meaghen Burrows and Madelyn Sherlock also represented Westhill, as did Abby Mullen and Lydia Stevenson, with Marcellus bringing Maddie Conklin and Abby Vetsch. J-E had Miranda Malvaso and Ciara VanHeesch, along with the Malvaso sisters in another bracket.
VanHeesch and Malvaso lost their opening match 6-2, 6-3, to Cazenovia’s Julia Barrett and Summer Steinhorst, but the other Malvaso sisters beat Maryum Kirch and Abby Rockwood (Lowville) 6-3, 6-2, only to lose in the next round to Maura McNeil and Maddy Pinckney (Skaneateles) 6-1, 6-1.
Burrows and Sherlock dropped a third-set tie-breaker in a 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 defeat to Chittenango’s Alyssa Knight and Brooke VanGorden. Mullen and Stevenson fell to Rachel Feeney and Julia Torrisi (Skaneateles) 7-6, 6-1, with Conklin and Vetsch rallying past Alyssa Knight and Brooke Van Gorden (Chittenango) 2-6, 7-5, 6-2, but losing in the quarterfinals to Belinski and Ellison 6-3. 6-2.
West Genesee was part of the Division I tournament at Syracuse University’s Skytop courts, mostly on the doubles side, where Samantha Heyn and Mikayla Mannara entered as the no. 2 seeds and, by reaching the semifinals, clinched that trip to the qualifier.
Heyn and Mannara took on Amy Gardner and Maddie Perry (Central Square) in the opening round and won, 6-1, 6-0, followed by a quarterfinal where they put away Liverpool’s Rachel Foster and Alexandra Ioannidis 6-0, 6-2.
This led to a semifinal against Baldwinsville’s duo of Bridgett Brown and Natalie Kot, who had rallied from one set down to beat WG’s duo of Mary Frontale and Kayla Llanos 4-6, 6-2, 6-0 in the previous round. Prior to that Frontale and Llanos took on another Central Square pair, Natalie Guzelak and Alyssa Payne, earning a 6-2, 6-1 victory,
Eager to avenge their teammates’ defeat, Heyn and Mannara did so, beating Brown and Kot in straight set 7-5, 6-2. Only in the finals did Heyn and Mannara get slowed up, though they led early against Auburn’s top-seeded duo of Lauryn Husby and Julia Wagner before the Maroons’ pair rallied to prevail 3-6, 6-0, 6-4.
On the other half the Division I doubles bracket, Lora Gould and Caroline McGuigan faced Fayetteville-Manlius’ Kristina Liu and Shirley Zhang and lost in straight sets, 6-0, 6-2. Andrea Wierbinski was WG’s lone singles player, and she didn’t stay long, taking a 6-2, 6-3 defeat to Cicero-North Syracuse’s Madison Murphy in the first round.
