With so much local success, it only figured that most of the area’s high school girls tennis teams would have a big part in the various Section III team tournaments that got underway late last week.
The big story came in Class B, where Christian Brothers Academy, following an undefeated regular season, drew the no. 2 seed and, in the quarterfinals, would oppose neighbor and rival Jamesville-DeWitt, the no. 7 seed.
It turned out to be a one-sided match, the Brothers prevailing 7-0 and not surrendering a set in any of those seven matches, though Anna Sasser went a bit longer in her singles match before beating Olivia DeHoog 6-4, 6-1.
Mikayla Santulil had a 6-0, 6-0 shutout of Anna Sofia Hege, with Grace DelPino rolling past Jungyun Kim 6-1, 6-1, and the four doubles matches offered little variation as CBA swept all of them, too.
To get it started, Alison Croucher and Rena Steele topped Natalie Alweis and Karen Tzizanis 6-1, 6-1. Grace Coyne and Aubrey Mills handled Margaret Frank and Inka Gajri 6-0, 6-4, with Karen Simone and Isabella Mead handling Sara Gow and Riya Sharma 6-0, 6-0. Sloane Nicoletti-Watson and Meredith Strott got their own 6-0, 6-0 win over Sophia Foti and Eileen Tan.
J-D got there by surviving a tough 4-3 opening-round match against no. 10 seed Chittenango. The Bears gained traction in doubles against J-D, where Allie Choi and Rachel Cleary routed Gajri and Frank 6-1, 6-0, while Hannah Bailey and Coralee Everett beat Sharma and Gow 6-3, 6-3.
A long, three-set battle saw Foti and Tan lead early and reach a second-set tie-breaker, but not hang on against Nadia Cannistra and Alexis Drake 4-6, 7-6 (7-4), 11-9. Thus, J-D had to win the other doubles match, plus all of the singles points – and did so.
Alweis and Tzizanis salvaged that doubles point by beating Mya Streiff and Jessie Gilbert 6-2, 7-5, and none of the singles matches went to three sets. Hege got past Anna Norman 6-2, 6-4, with DeHoog shutting out Meghan Pexton 6-0, 6-0 and Maya Pollock nearly doing the same in a 6-1, 6-0 romp over Kelly Gloo.
The J-D run would end against CBA, though, and the Brothers will face no. 3 seed Cazenovia in Wednesday’s semifinal, with the winner to get Oneida or Carthage in the title match Friday at Utica Parkway Courts.
Manlius-Pebble Hill was the no. 6 seed in Class C, and would, in the quarterfinals, take on no. 3 seed Skaneateles, a team it beat 5-2 earlier in the week. The rematch took a far different course, though, as third-set tie-breakers allowed the Lakers to edge the Trojans 4-3.
To get there, the Trojans first had to knock out no. 11 seed Canastota 4-1 in its opening-round match, sweeping all three singles matches from the Raiders. Anna Szombatha blanked Payton Shirley 6-0, 6-0, while Louisa Morrow stopped Dominique Cesario 6-2, 7-5 and Grace Walsh handled Crystal VanOrnam 6-1, 6-1.
In doubles play, Halle Erwin and Hannah Ebner lost, 6-3, 6-2, to Sarah Campbell and Carly Cashel, but the duo of Genevieve Morrow and Lily Grenis had an easy time of it, defeating Logan Hood and SkylerDonley by scores of 6-1 and 6-0.
This led to Skaneateles, and to quite a battle. Of the seven matches, four of them would require three sets to decide.
Skaneateles got an upper hand in singles when Erica Byrne outlasted Genevieve Morrow 6-3, 1-6, 6-1, which negated Grace Walsh beating Rachel Feeney 6-0, 6-3. Moving to doubles, Erwin, paired with Parmees Fazelli, beat Isabella Kroon and Brinley Walawender 6-1, 7-5, while in a three-set battle Szombatha paired with Sophie Novak and won, 6-2, 2-6, 6-2, over Angela Krause and Mary McNeil.
But that fourth point never arrived. Meg Curtis and Amina Kilpatrick had a 6-3, 6-3 defeat to Melissa Biver and Shannan Roberts, In singles, Annie Weiss won the first set 6-3 over Alex Ditch, a player she had beat earlier in the week, but lost the second set 6-1 and, in a third-set tie-breaker, Ditch pulled it out 10-8 to get a valuable point.
Morrow and Grenis roared to a 6-1 first-set win over Lily Datz and Hope Allyn, only to lose a tough second set 6-4 and, when that third set got pushed to a tie-breaker, only managing a couple of points in the 7-2 verdict.
Elsewhere in the Class C opening round, Bishop Grimes, holding the no. 13 seed, went north to face no. 4 seed Lowville in the opening round and managed just a single point in a 1-0 defeat to the Red Raiders.
