West Genesee girls tennis player Mikayla Mannara was used to this kind of pressure. Katie Viau was new to it.
Put together, though, Mannara and Viau would make their way to the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships through their third-place finish in last week’s Section III state qualifier at Drumlins.
Mannara and Viau had finished second in the Section III Division I tournament, which concluded Oct. 14 at Liverpool with the Wildcats pair falling in the finals to the Fayetteville-Manlius duo of Maggie Bonomo and Katerina Atallah.
Just by reaching the Division I semifinals, though, put Mannara and Viau in the state qualifier, and they had the no. 2 seed, lined up in the same bracket as the Westhill duo of Abby Mullen and Lydia Stevenson, who made the semifinals in the sectional Division II tournament.
And each of them would win in last Tuesday’s opening round of the qualifier. While Mannara and Viau beat Central Square’s Erin McCarthy and Samantha Payne 6-0, 6-2, Mullen and Stevenson battled through three sets and two hours to beat the Skaneateles team of Angela Krause and Mary McNeil 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.
Tired from that match, Mullen and Stevenson had little left for Mannara and Viau, who prevailed in straight sets 6-0, 6-0 to get themselves to Thursday’s matches that would determine the top three to advance to Sound Shore Indoor Tennis Center in Port Chester.
A win in the semifinal against Oneida’s Lauren Skibitski and Briana Laureti would assure that berth. Mannara and Viau pushed the first set to a tie-breaker at 6-6, but then lost, 7-5, from which it could not recover as Skibitski and Laureti won the second set 6-1 to close out the match.
So it all hinged on Mannara and Viau defeating Christian Brothers Academy’s tandem of Rena Steele and Alison Croucher in the third-place match, and the Wildcats duo won the first set 6-0, only to drop the second set 6-4.
Saving some of its best work for the homestretch, Mannara and Viau won the third set 6-2 to earn that trip to the state tournament, where they would join Skibitski and Laureti, plus the Fayetteville-Manlius duo of Katerina Atallah and Maggie Bonomo. F-M’s Kristina Liu, Auburn’s Julia Wagner and New Hartford’s Sarah Corasanti are the singles qualifiers.
