With the Section III team and individual tournaments fast approaching, the Baldwinsville girls tennis team got the ideal sort of tune-up in its last set of regular-season matches.
First, the Bees hosted Liverpool last Monday afternoon and could not win a point in any of the singles matches, yet recovered with steady, strong doubles play that rescued a 4-3 victory over the Warriors.
Paige Tromblee and Amanda Coogan got it started in doubles, topping Valerie Morgans and Annie Trang 6-1, 7-5. By similar scores, Yasha Parawar and Riley Warren beat Ashley Wright and Giana LaValle 6-2, 7-5.
Brooke Tutor and Jennifer Stone, competing in first doubles for B’ville, shut out Megan Blake and Julie Nguyen in the first set and went on a 6-0, 6-4 victory, while in third doubles Gabby Fiello and Katherine Cassidy gained a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Eleni Ioannidis and Diana Kozenyatko.
A long singles battle that required two tie-breakers saw the Bees’ Lauren Devine fall to Liverpool’s Erin Chambrone 6-3, 6-7 (7-4), 7-6 (7-1). The other singles matches weren’t as exciting, with Alina Minkova losing to Katelyn Nguyen 6-0, 6-1 and Taylor Collado aceepting a 6-1, 6-4 defeat to Julie Schewe.
And that led to Wednesday’s showdown with unbeaten (12-0) Fayetteville-Manlius, with the CNY Counties League regular-season title at stake. Try as it could, though, B’ville could not keep the Hornets from a 13th consecutive win to close its regular season in a 7-0 decision.
Their first meeting, on Sept. 12, saw the Bees earn a point in a 6-1 defeat, but F-M didn’t let that happen again. The closest B’ville came to even earning a set came in first doubles, where Stone and Tutor paired up and got a second-set tie-breaker in a 6-3, 7-6 (8-6) defeat to Katerina Attalah and Patrice Calancie.
Tromblee and Devine lost, 6-4, 6-1, to Diana Polovick and Kristina Liu, with Cassidy and Fiello falling to Maddy Drapeau and Martha Welker 6-1, 6-0 as Parawar and Warren had a 6-1, 6-1 defeat to Anna Charlamb and Rachel Liu.
Moving to the singles side, F-M’s Maggie Bonomo did not let Coogan snare a point in a 6-0, 6-0 decision. Meanwhile, Minkova did a bit better in a 6-3, 6-2 loss to Keara Polovick, with Collado falling to Anna Manta 6-1, 6-2.
B’ville then closed the regular season Friday by shutting out Syracuse East 7-0, with Stone and Tutor surrendering just one total game in four sets of singles play as Katie Herbs took a turn in singles and beat Imane Aitnajim 6-1, 6-0. The doubles teams of Tromblee-Minkova, Devine-Collado, Fiello-Allison Delaney and Cassidy-Madeline Ferguson all won in straight sets.
With no time to rest, B’ville, as the no. 2 seed took its spot in the Section III Class A team tournament Saturday afternoon, hosting no. 7 seed Rome Free Academy in the opening round and wiping out the Black Knights in another 7-0 decision.
Devine had a 6-0, 6-0 win over Vanessa Fredette, with Tutor topping Zuzzanna Pociecha 6-1, 6-0 and Stone working a bit longer to stop Racahel Gratch 6-0, 6-4. On the doubles side, Coogan and Tromblee had the closest match, beating Anna Loso and EmilyWhite 6-4, 6-1, with the teams of Collado-Minkova and Cassidy-Fiello both prevailing without dropping a game as Parawar and Warren won, 6-2, 6-1, over Zoey Baird and Alison Fragapane.
If B’ville could top no. 3 seed Auburn in Wednesday’s semifinal, it faced a likely championship match with F-M, the top seed, Friday at Utica Parkway Courts.
