Already with the Section III Class A championship in hand, the Fayetteville-Manlius girls tennis team wanted to do much more.
None of the Hornets’ players were able to reach the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championship tournament a year ago, but now a trio of them put themselves in position to do so during last week’s sectional state qualifier at Drumlins and two of them, Kristina Liu and Shirley Zhang, would get there.
To start with, Liu and Zhang defeated the Skaneateles duo of Rachel Feeney and Julia Torrisi 6-2, 6-3. Then, in a quarterfinal against Baldwinsville’s Bridget Brown and Natalie Kot, Liu and Zhang made it through a pair of closely-fought sets to win a 6-4, 7-5 decision.
Moving to Thursday’s semifinals, Liu and Zhang found Auburn’s top-seeded duo of Lauryn Husby and Julia Wagner far too tough, taking a 6-0, 6-0 defeat. Thus, it all rode on a third-place match against Oneida’s Jillian Brodock and Briana Laureti.
The pressure increased when Liu and Zhang lost that first set 6-4, but they turned things around, won the second set 6-2, and by a 6-3 margin in the third set clinched a trip to Latham’s Tri-City Fitness Center, joining Husby and Wagner, along with the West Genesee pair of Samantha Heyn and Mikayla Mannara.
In singles, F-M’s Maggie Bonomo entered the tournament as a no. 3 seed. She made it through last Tuesday’s early rounds without dropping a set, Bonomo defeating Central Square’s Brianna Grimes 6-1, 6-2 in the opening round.
The quarterfinal pitted Bonomo against Manlius-Pebble Hill’s Grace Del Pino, who topped Angela Krause (Skaneateles) by those same 6-1, 6-2 scores in the first round. In a long first set, Bonomo went to a tie-breaker, but finally topped Del Pino 7-6, going on to win the second set 6-0.
Now, if Bonomo beat New Hartford’s Sarah Corasanti, the no. 2 seed (who hadn’t lost a game yet), in Thursday’s semifinals, she would advance to the state tournament, since the top three finishers qualified. But Corasanti prevailed, 6-4, 6-3, and in the third-place match that followed, Mexico’s Giylia Bancale topped Bonomo 6-1, 6-1, joining Corasanti and Baldwinsville’s Kahlei Reisinger on the state tournament team.
Another F-M singles player, Katerina Atallah, knocked off sectional Division III singles champion Haley Randall (Marcellus) 6-3, 6-3 in the first round, only to take a 6-0, 7-5 defeat to Bancale in the quarterfinals. Christian Brothers Academy’s Mikayla Santulli had already faced Bancale in the opening round, and lost, 6-3, 6-0.
Jamesville-DeWitt saw its top doubles team of Jungyun Kim and Maya Pollock nearly reach the semifinals. Kim and Pollock beat the strong Skaneateles team of Liz Belinski and Katelyn Ellison 7-5, 7-5, and then pushed Broddock and Laureti to a third set before taking a 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 defeat.
