With a dominant performance over four rounds that ultimately spanned four days with a lot of rain in between, Cazenovia girls tennis players Alex Galle and Nina Royer were victorious in last week’s Section III Division III tournament.
Each of the first four rounds was contested at Syracuse University’s Skytop Courts, where Galle and Royer held the top seed and never was challenged on its way to the finals.
Following a first-round bye, Galle and Royer blanked Canastota’s Skyler Donley and Valona Whitehead 6-0, 6-0, setting up a quarterfinal and another 6-0, 6-0 shutout, this one over Jordan-Elbridge’s Katelyn Precourt and Gabrielle Skotinski.
The semifinal wasn’t much different, Galle and Royer handling Marcellus’ Kaitlyn Kemp and Morgan Walsh 6-2, 6-1 to set up a final against the Skaneateles pair of Ella Danforth and Emma Miller.
After two days of weather postponements, Galle and Royer finally met Danforth and Miller Saturday at Oneida High School. A first set tie-breaker went 7-6 in Galle and Royer’s favor, and after the Skaneateles pair won the second set 6-2, the third set belonged to the Cazenovia duo, whose 6-1 victory produced a sectional title.
Nova Berger and Emma Schwartz won 6-1, 6-4 over J-E’s Delaney Dunham and Meghan Whalen before Kemp and Walsh beat them 6-4, 6-2 in the quarterfinals.
A third Cazenovia doubles team, Mae Sayre and Emma Thornton did not get out of the opening round as they took a 6-0, 3-6, 6-1 defeat to another Marcellus tandem, Elaina Mahoney and Megan Mitchell.
Meanwhile, in the Division II sectional tournament at Utica Parkway Courts, Chittenango had its top players try to make long runs.
In singles, the Bears’ Brooke DiFlorio won 6-1, 6-1 over Jamesville-DeWitt’s Celia Reid before a 6-1, 6-2 quarterfinal defeat to New Hartford’s top seed, Grace LaFountain.
Anna Rooney led early in her in her first-round singles match with the Spartans’ Anna Farkouh, but lost 4-6, 6-1, 6-3 as Farkouh ultimately reached the semifinals before losing to LaFountain in straight sets.
In doubles, Chittenango had Abbie Austin and Allison Soulier win in the first round and then top Whitesboro’s Shelby Miller and Yanna Pavlyukovets 7-6, 6-4, but then lost a 6-1, 6-1 quarterfinal to Jamesville-DeWitt’s Mona Farah and Tara Pollock.
It was the same for the Bears’ Riley Ellis and Sarah Lanphear, who topped the J-D duo of Riya Sharma and Lana Wisniewski 6-4, 6-4, only to drop a close 6-4, 7-5 quarterfinal match to New Hartford’s Rachel DeRocco and Tess Evans.
Leah Demauro and Jessica Hallack lost in the opening round 10-0 to Oneida’s Mikah Albro and Hannah Myatt.
