A solid regular season gave the Cicero-North Syracuse girls tennis team a chance to compete in the Section III Class A team tournament, where it lasted until the semifinal round.
Given the no. 5 seed, the Northstars were part of a bracket that included the likes of no. 3 seed Auburn and no. 4 seed Central Square, teams that were in the OHSL Freedom division and hadn’t faced the likes of C-NS during the regular season. Plus, some CNY Counties League, like West Genesee, didn’t play in the sectional team tournament, opening up the field a bit.
C-NS and Central Square met in the opening round last Monday afternoon, a long battle that included plenty of back-and-forth momentum shifts before the Northstars, sweeping all four doubles matches, pulled out a 4-3 decision over the Northstars.
Brenna Duffy and Megan Tryniski got one doubles points, topping Julia Georges and Victoria Tyrrell 6-4, 6-0. Sarah Cooper and Sarah Wicks got a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Maddie Haley and Savannah Todd, with Vanessa Luangaphay and Jenna Wilson getting past Brittney Schill and Rya Taylor 6-3, 6-1.
This made up for defeats in each of the singles matches, including a three-setter where Sydney Franco worked long and hard, but lost, 7-5, 3-6, 10-7, to Alyssa Payne. Breanna Melfi fell to Madison Sabourin 7-5, 6-0, with Ava Breitbeck losing to Erin McCartny 6-2, 6-2.
All this did was lead to Wednesday’s semifinal, where C-NS would take yet another shot at undefeated top seed Fayetteville-Manlius, and could not earn a point in a 7-0 defeat to the Hornets.
The close matches were in doubles, where Duffy and Tryniski pushed hard, but lost to Kristina Liu and Diana Polovick 6-4, 7-5, while Cooper and Wicks got into a first-set tie-breaker in a 7-6 (7-5), 6-1 defeat to Gretchen Ayoub and Martha Welker.
Costello and Murphy fell to Katerina Atallah and Patrice Calancie 6-2, 6-2 as Melfi and Savage had a 6-1, 6-1 defeat to Anna Charlamb and Rachel Liu. Up in the singles division, Franco fell to Anna Manta 6-0, 6-2, with Wilson running into Keara Polovick and taking a 6-0, 6-1 loss.
Liverpool had one more regular-season match last Monday, against West Genesee, and took a 5-2 defeat to the Wildcats despite singles matches where Katelyn Nguyen and Julie Schewe each won by 6-1, 6-0 margins over, respectively, Natalie Thurston and Danielle Bertelli.
In the other singles matches, Gabby Underwood lost, 6-3, 6-3, to Andrea Andreeva. Then the Warriors could not claim a set in any of the four doubles matches, with Annie Trang and Valerie Morgans getting the most out of it in a 6-2, 6-4 defeat to Lauren Ferris and Meghan Mello.
Elsewhere, Megan Blake and Erin Chambrone lost, 6-0, 6-1, to Mikayla Mannara and Katie Viau, with Decker and Veronica Brancato falling to Angelina Llanos and Andrea Wierbinski 6-3, 6-2. Brancato and Krystyna Sterio met Phoebe Nelson and Anastasia Mello and lost by those same 6-3, 6-2 scores.
