There’s a new venue for the New York State Public High School Athletic Association girls tennis tournament, as it moves from Latham, in the Albany area, down the Hudson River to Port Chester, in Westchester County, and the Sound Shore Indoor Center.
Regardless of the venue, though, a constant is the presence of local stars in that state tournament, with three Fayetteville-Manlius players – Maggie Bonomo, Katerina Atallah and Kristina Liu – punching their tickets through their work at Drumlins during this week’s Section III state qualifiers.
At the forefront was Bonomo and Atallah, who were the top seeds in doubles going into the qualifier. After a first-round bye, Bonomo and Atallah cruised through a quarterfinal against Oneida’s Anna Hood and Kylie Chesebro 6-1, 6-1.
Now, in Thursday afternoon’s semifinals, Bonomo and Atallah met the Christian Brothers Academy team of Alison Croucher and Rena Steele, the Division III sectional champions.
In the early rounds, Croucher and Steele beat Westmoreland’s Kia Barber and Olivia Merrell 6-0, 6-2 and then rolled past Jamesville-DeWitt’s Maya Pollock and Jungyun Kim 6-4, 6-3 in the quarterfinals as another CBA duo, Grace Coyne and Aubrey Mills, lost in the first round to Oneida’s Lauren Skibitski and Brianna Laureti 6-1, 6-3.
Great as this run was, Croucher and Steele saw it and against Bonomo and Atallah, whose 6-1, 6-1 victory in Thursday’s semifinal guaranteed that they were going to Port Chester.
Not stopping there, though, Bonomo and Atallah would face Oneida’s Brianna Laureti and Lauren Skibitski in the finals. After winning the first set 6-1, Bonomo and Atallah lost the second set 6-4, but bounced back to win the third set 6-2 and take the title.
For the third berth in doubles, it all came down to Croucher and Steele facing West Genesee’s Mikayla Mannara and Katie Viau. This, too, would go three sets, with Croucher and Steele shut out in the opener 6-0 and recovering to take the second set 6-4, only to have Mannara and Viau prevail 6-2 in the final set.
In the singles competition, Liu beat CBA’s Grace DelPino in straight sets in the third-place match to earn the final berth in the state tournament after each of them lost in the semifinals.
Liu, the no. 3 seed, beat Homer’s Lucy Mercer 6-1, 6-1 in the first round, and overcame a 3-0 first-set deficit to turn back Liverpool’s Katelyn Nguyen 6-4, 7-5 in the quarterfinals. DelPino, meanwhile, had beaten Bishop Grimes star Liz Wolaver 6-0, 6-1 in the opening round and then made quite a quarterfinal comeback, rallying from one set down to get past Utica-Notre Dame’s Ellen Lyga in the quarterfinal in three sets 4-6, 7-5, 6-0.
Two days later, DelPino would face the top seed, Auburn’s Katie Wagner, and it proved too much, Wagner prevailing 6-0, 6-1, and Liu met the same fate against New Hartford’s Sarah Corasanti, taking a 6-1, 6-0 defeat. Hours later, Liu beat DelPino as Wagner survived a 7-6 (7-4), 4-6, 6-4 battle with Corasanti to win the tournament.
A pair of Manlius-Pebble Hill doubles teams suffered first-round defeats, with Sophie Novak and Anna Szombathy falling to Pollock and Kim 6-1, 6-3 while Lily Grenis and Louisa Morrow taking a 6-1, 6-1 loss to Hood and Chesebro. J-D’s Katie Tzizanis and Natalie Alweis had to default their match to Baldwinsville’s Jennifer Stone and Brooke Tutor.
