Amid a week full of showdowns between fall sports teams from Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool, the girls tennis match held last Monday afternoon offered some of the best drama.
Though it was beaten in each of the three singles matches, the Northstars claimed all four doubles matches, two of them with comebacks at the last minute, to pull out a 4-3 decision over the Warriors.
Not only had Liverpool swept the singles, it didn’t drop a set in any of those three matches. The Warriors’ Katelyn Nguyen rolled past Ava Breitbeck 6-1, 6-1 in first singles, with Julie Schewe routing Jenna Wilson 6-1, 6-0 and Erin Chambrone putting together a 6-1, 6-3 win over Sydney Franco.
But C-NS had put its best singles players into doubles, and gained a point there when Madison Murphy and Hanna Costello knocked off Megan Blake and Julie Nguyen 6-3, 6-2, and with another point earned from doubles, the Northstars were back in it.
The excitement came in second doubles, where C-NS’s Sarah Wicks and Sarah Cooper were down a set to Liverpool’s Ashley Wright and Valerie Morgans,, and facing a second-set tie-breaker, but somehow pulled that out and went on to win the match 2-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-3.
Also, Morgan Kocher and Vanessa Luangaphay lost the first set to Diana Kozenyatko and Gabby Underwood 6-4, only to win the second set 6-3 and pull out an 11-9 verdict in the third set.
Liverpool would have a chance to get even with C-NS on Sept. 28. In the meantime, plenty of more CNY Counties League matches awaited both sides.
The Warriors faced West Genesee on Wednesday and lost, 5-2, to the Wildcats. Chambrone nabbed a singles point by sweeping Thi Tran 6-1, 6-4, while Blake and Julie Nguyen defeated Meghan Mello and Andrea Wierbinski 6-2, 6-1.
But the Wildcats did not drop a set in any of the remaining matches. Annie Trang, in singles, fell to Danielle Bertelli 6-2, 6-3, with Morgans and Julie Nguyen playing the closest of the doubles matches, a 6-2, 6-4 defeat to Aneglina Llanos and Natalie Thurston.
C-NS, meanwhile, returned to the court Thursday against Baldwinsville and fell, 6-1, to the Bees, and it wouldn’t get much easier for the Northstars as it faces Fayetteville-Manlius Wednesday in its lone match this week.
