Fresh off its historic run to the Section III Class A team championship, the Christian Brothers Academy girls tennis team would follow up with having both of the singles’ finalists in last week’s sectional Division I tournament.
This tournament, which started last Tuesday at Syracuse University’s Skytop Courts, offered a rematch of sorts, since Fayetteville-Manlius was also in the field and still remembering how the Brothers beat the Hornets 4-3 in the sectional semifinals Oct. 10 before edging Baldwinsville by that same score in the championship round a day later.
No one could beat CBA’s top singles duo of Gieselle Vlassis and Grace DelPino. Vlassis did not drop a game against F-M’s Trisha Adivikolanu in the quarterfinals and then won 6-0, 6-2 over B’ville’s Paige Tromblee in the semifinals.
Meanwhile, DelPino got a 6-3, 6-1 quarterfinal win over the Hornets’ Samhitha Adivikolanu and met another B’ville star, Brooke Tutor, in the semifinals, with DelPino winning 6-0, 6-3.
Facing each other in the sectional final Friday on their home court at CBA, Vlassis proved too much for DelPino, prevailing in straight sets 6-2, 6-2.
Tutor had earlier eliminated F-M’s Angela Iskander 6-1, 6-1, while another CBA singles player, Julia DelPino, could not get out of the opening round, falling 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 to Liverpool’s Diana Kozenyatko.
F-M meanwhile, had its doubles team of Anna Manta and Phoebe Wang prove just as dominant, not dropping a set in any of their matches on the way to the Division I sectional title.
Manta and Wang just three games of its first two matches before a hard-fought 6-4, 7-6 win over Liverpool’s Julia Schewe and Angelica Underwood in the semifinals. Then, in the finals Saturday at Oneida High School, Manta and Wang claimed a 6-1, 6-1 romp over West Genesee’s Angelina Llanos and Katie Viau.
CBA had Grace Catalano and Aubrey Mills earn a berth in the state qualifier thanks to sweeping F-M’s Alexis Ahn and Emma Zogg 6-4, 6-3 in the quarterfinals. Catalano and Mills lost in the semifinals to Llanos and Viau 6-2, 6-2.
Schewe and Underwood had taken out CBA’s Annie Kilmartin and Isabella Mead in the round of 16, with F-M’s Maya Mckenzie and Camila Wojtasiewicz beating the Brothers’ Lily Geneocco and Maddie Tallman 6-3, 7-5 before Llanos and Viau beat them 6-0, 6-2.
Jamesville-DeWitt, taking part in the Division II sectional tournament, had its doubles team of Mona Farah and Tara Pollock earn the championship in a classic battle with Oneida’s Mattie Hicks and Sydney Lusher.
A first set tie-breaker went 7-6 in Farah and Pollock’s favor. Hicks and Lusher won the second set 6-3, but the final set went to the J-D pair in a 6-4 decision.
Prior to this, Farah and Pollock beat Julia Guest and Sadie Urtz (Cortland) 6-1, 6-1 before topping Chittenango’s Abbie Austin and Allison Soulier by those same scores. In the semifinals, Farah and Pollock stopped Whitesboro’s Kylie Cleary and Karlie Cubino 6-1, 6-2.
J-D’s Riya Sharma and Lana Wisniewski lost in the round of 16, as did Libby Blair and Serena Patel, with each of these Red Rams pairs falling in two sets.
Moving to singles, J-D’s Inika Gajra won 6-7, 6-0, 6-3 over Homer’s Ellis Han in the first round, but lost a 6-1, 5-7, 6-3 battle with New Hartford’s Nicole Farkouh in the quarterfinals as Celia Reid lost in the first round to Chittenango’s Brooke DiFlorio 6-1, 6-1.
East Syracuse Minoa had two teams in the doubles field, with Julia Barnwell and Alana Day losing in the single-set opening round and the Spartans’ duo of Katie Schmidt and Megan Volz doing the same.
In Division IV, there was Manlius-Pebble Hill having Parmees Fazeli reach the singles semifinals. Fazeli blanked Beaver River’s Caitlynn Woodward 6-0, 6-0 in the quarterfinals before a 6-3, 7-5 semifinal defeat to Utica-Notre Dame’s Emily Lyga.
In doubles,Amitees Fazeli and Caroline Mezzalingua also got to the semifinals, winning in the quarterfinals 6-4, 6-3 over Sauquoit Valley’s Ella and Olivia Luczak before a 7-5, 6-2 semifinal loss to Utica-Notre Dame’s tandem of Samantha Fluty and Caitlyn Snyder.
Bishop Grimes’ Sarah Falgiatano and Sofia Ziankoski won a first-round 6-4, 6-3 decision over MPH’s Emma Gross and Eden Hldebrandt before Flury and Snyder beat them 6-1, 6-4 a round later.
