There wasn’t much time for the Skaneateles girls tennis team to regroup after its 5-2 defeat to Cazenovia in the Oct. 10 Section III Class C final – but it did, and in the sweetest way possible.
Four days later, the Lakers sent its best players to that same sectional finals location, Utica’s Mott Courts, to compete in sectional singles and doubles tournaments in Division III.
The top four finishers in each division advanced to next week’s state qualifier at Drumlins. Thanks to their strong play in doubles and singles, Skaneateles will have seven players at Drumlins, including three doubles teams that gained sweet revenge on Cazenovia by knocking out three of the other Lakers’ doubles sides by the exact same scores.
In doubles, the Lakers had Liz Belinski and Katelyn Ellison on hand as the top seed, along with the team of Maura McNeil and Maddy Pinkney as the no. 4 seed, plus Rachel Feeney and Julia Torrisi.
All three of the sides advanced to the semifinals. Feeney and Torrisi had started by defeating Abby Mullen and Lydia Stevenson (Westhill) 7-6, 6-1, followed by a 6-1, 6-2 sweep of Chittenango’s Mackenzie Millick and Taylor Scalzo.
In that same round, Belinski and Ellison beat Cazenovia’s Summer Steinhorst and Julia Barrett 6-4, 6-0 as McNeil and Pinkney had their own 6-1, 6-1 win over Jordan-Elbridge’s Miranda and Marissa Malvaso.
Then, in the quarterfinals, the fun continued. Belinski and Ellison handled Maddie Conklin and Abby Vetsch (Marcellus) 6-3, 6-1, but the other teams bashed Cazenovia foes, with McNeil and Pinkney taking out Anna Barrett and Brittany Wright 6-1, 6-1 and, by those exact same totals, Feeney and Torrisi knocking out the no. 2-seeded Cazenovia pair of Laura and Lucy Connor.
One semifinal match on Thursday pitted two Laker sides against each other, with Belinski and Ellison prevailing, 6-3, 6-3, over McNeil and Pinkney, while Feeney and Torrisi lost, 6-3, 6-0, to Westhill’s pair of Cameron and Mackenzie Aiello.
But the Aiellos ran into Belinski and Ellison in the finals, and the top Skaneateles pair won another 6-3, 6-3 decision to earn the sectional Division III championship.
Over in Division III singles, none of the Lakers were seeded, but Angela Krause, Olivia Gage and Erica Byrne all would get their chances.
Byrne survived a 6-4, 7-5 opening-round match with Westhill’s Katie DeVeyra, but ran into top seed Haley Randall (Marcellus) and lost, 6-0, 6-0. Gage defeated Hannah Bassett (South Jefferson) 6-3, 6-2 before a 6-2, 6-1 quarterfinal defeat to Chittenango’s Kelly Gloo.
Krause beat another Marcellus foe, Rickie Mixon, 6-3, 6-2, to reach the quarterfinal against CBA’s Allison Croucher. With a state qualifier berth at stake, Krause lost the first set, 6-4, but rallied to beat Croucher in the next two sets by 6-4 and 6-2 margins.
The only negative part for Krause was that she had to face Randall in the semifinals. Just as she had done with Byrne, Randall won here, too, 6-1, 6-0, and went on to top CBA’s Mikayla Santulli in the finals, though all of them would play again at Drumlins next week.
