A strong regular-season mark meant that the Skaneateles girls tennis team had to feel good about its chances going into the Section III Class C team tournament, where it held the no. 3 seed but would face someone it had just lost to earlier in the week.
The Lakers played twice in a 24-hour span early last week, starting with Monday’s battle against Bishop Grimes, one where having a full roster paid plenty of dividends in a 5-2 victory over the Cobras.
Twice, Grimes had to forfeit doubles matches, but the other points were still needed. Getting them, Angela Krause and Rachel Feeney defeated Mary Castricone and Gina Martin 6-2, 6-0, with Hope Allyn and Lily Datz getting a 6-4, 6-1 win over Olivia Minor and Michela Marturano.
Skaneateles would struggle on the singles side, seeing Erica Byrne fall to Liz Wolaver 6-3, 6-3 as Mary McNeil had a 6-4, 6-2 defeat to Rachel Christie. However, Alex Ditch survived two tough sets to get the Lakers a point as she beat Katie Knittel 7-5, 7-5.
It figured to be tougher against Manlius-Pebble Hill on Tuesday afternoon – and in the regular-season finale, Skaneateles did get caught and passed by the Trojans, eventually taking a 5-2 defeat.
Doubles matches proved pivotal, three of them going to three sets and MPH claiming two of them. Isabella Kroon and Hope Glowacki had a 2-6, 7-5, 10-1 defeat to Meg Curtis and Parmees Fazell, while Allyn and Datz fell to Genevieve Morrow and Lily Grenis 6-1, 2-6, 6-3. Feeney and Krause had a 6-4, 6-4 loss to Sophie Novak and Anna Szombatha.
Of the three singles matches, Skaneateles only won one of them, Byrne defeating Louisa Morrow 6-3, 6-1. McNeil ran into Grace Walsh and took a 6-0, 6-2 defeat as Ditch lost, 7-6, 6-1, to Annie Weiss.
As it turned out, Skaneateles, due to its no. 3 seed in the Class C sectional bracket, would have a rematch with MPH, the no. 6 seed, in Friday’s quarterfinal at Austin Park. With a chance at getting even in the match that mattered more, the Lakers did just that, rallying twice from behind to win third-set tie-breakers and edge the Trojans 4-3.
Of the seven matches, four of them would require three sets to decide. Skaneateles got an upper hand in singles when Byrne outlasted Genevieve Morrow 6-3, 1-6, 6-1, which negated Feeney’s 6-0, 6-3 defeat to Grace Walsh.
Moving to doubles, Melissa Biver and Shannan Roberts earned a valuable point by beating Curtis and Amina Kilpatrick 6-3, 6-3. Kroon and Brinley Walawender lost, 6-1, 7-5, to Hannah Erwin and Parmees Fazelli as Krause and McNeil went to three sets, but lost, 6-2, 2-6, 6-2, to Novak and Szombatha.
Now three different players would stage memorable comebacks. In singles, Ditch, in a rematch with Weiss, lost the first set 6-3 and took the second set 6-1, while in the third set it dragged to a tie-breaker that Ditch pulled out 10-8 to get a valuable point.
Datz and Allyn had the same inspiring finish in doubles, routed in the first set 6-1 by Morrow and Grenis, only to prevail, 6-4, in a tough second set and then, when that third set got pushed to a tie-breaker, winning it 7-2 to get that 7-6 win and clinching fourth point.
