Though it took much longer than planned, the Baldwinsville girls tennis team could proclaim its Section III Class A playoff run a successful one just on the basis of its thrilling 4-3 win over Liverpool in the opening round.
They had met twice in the regular season, each side prevailing once. Originally, the sectional match was supposed to take place Sept. 29, but rain pushed it back to last Monday, and the fact that all four of the doubles matches would go to three sets meant that the last of those matches had to wait until Tuesday to get finished.
By then, the Bees had locked up all three singles points. Brooke Tutor had rolled past Julie Schewe 6-1, 6-2, with Taylor Tripodi routing Giana LaValle 6-0, 6-1 and Alina Minkova needing to go three sets to get past Erin Chambrone 6-3, 4-6, 6-1.
Of the three doubles matches decided last Monday, all went in Liverpool’s favor. Meghan Blake and Valerie Morgans were two games from defeat when they rallied to prevail, 2-6, 7-5, 6-2, over Paige Tromblee and Lauren Devine.
Diana Kozanyetko, paired with Gabby Underwood, won a 6-1, 5-7, 6-1 decision over Allison Delaney and Emily Faldeau, with Aryanna Davia and Crystal Morgans having much the same experience beating Brooke Tripodi and Liz Daughty 6-2, 2-6, 6-1.
So it all came down to fourth doubles, where the Bees’ Riley Warren and Jessica Rush won the first set 6-2 over Natalie Kidd and Erica Gibbs, but lost the second set 6-1. A close third set on Friday would go 6-4 in favor of Warren and Rush, and the Bees had advanced.
The only bad part of all this was that B’ville would be facing undefeated, top-seeded Fayetteville-Manlius in the Class A semifinals, and the well-rested Hornets would knock out the Bees 7-0.
In the closest of the seven matches ,Tutor paired with Paige Tromblee and pushed Keara and Diana Polovick in both sets, but lost them by 6-4, 6-4 margins. Warren and Brooke Tripodi fell to Maddy Drapeau and Phoebe Wang 6-1, 6-2, with Rush and Daughty falling 6-0, 6-0 to Patrice Calancie and Martha Welker as Ella Tromblee and Benton Audrey lost, 6-1, 6-0, to Rachel Liu and Cassie Wojtasiewicz.
Up in singles, Faldeau took a turn against Maggie Bonomo, earning a pair of games in a 6-0, 6-2 defeat, with the same thing happening to Hannah Gold as she lost to Katerina Atallah 6-2, 6-0. Taylor Tripodi had a 6-1, 6-1 loss to Anna Manta.
