In two separate Section III tournaments last week, girls tennis teams from West Genesee, Jordan-Elbridge and Skaneateles each had players reach the championship round.
For the Wildcats, that meant seeing its top-seeded doubles team of Angelina Llanos and Katie Viau get to the finals of Division I as a result of a run of wins last Tuesday at Syracuse University’s Skytop Courts.
Starting out, Llanos and Viau won 6-0, 6-2 over Auburn’s Kathryn Brown and Alexis Calkins, and by those same scores they beat Maya McKenzie and Camila Wojtasziewicz (Fayetteville-Manlius) in the quarterfinals.
With a berth in the state qualifier secured, Llanos and Viau turned back Christian Brothers Academy’s Grace Catalano and Aubrey Mills 6-2, 6-2 in the semifinals to set up a title match at Oneida High School with F-M’s Anna Manta and Phoebe Wang, which like other finals were postponed for two days until Saturday morning by rain and wet conditions.
Ultimately, Manta and Wang prevailed 6-1, 6-1, but Llanos and Viau had still earned a berth in this week’s sectional state qualifying tournament, to take place at Drumlins.
Long before the finals, Catalano and Mills had knocked out WG’s Alyssa Congel and Margaret Mello 6-0, 6-1 in the round of 16, with Kara Chawgo and Aislinn Dow beaten in that same round.
Meanwhile, in Division III at Skytop, it was Jordan-Elbridge’s Anisa Bort capping off her team’s fine season by reaching the singles finals, while Skaneateles had Ella Danforth and Emma Miller get to the doubles finals.
With the no. 2 seed,Bort beat two local stars as he first rallied past Skaneateles standout Lily Miller 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 in the quarterfinals, and then met Marcellus’ Kathleen DeMarle in the semifinals, Bort topping DeMarle 6-3, 7-5.
The final had Bort against Phoenix’s Brielle DeRoberts, who had ended the run of Marcellus’ Danielle Copp in a 6-0, 6-0 semifinal and had beaten Copp’s teammate, Colleen Marsh, 6-2, 6-0 in the quarterfinals, Marsh having topped Sophie Marin (Camden) a round earlier. And Bort would also fall to DeRoberts in a 6-0, 6-0 decision.
Prior to that, Copp had beaten Skaneateles’ Kenna Ellis 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 after they had both won opening-round matches in straight sets – Copp over Holland Patent’s Julia Cicci, Ellis over Camden’s Morgan Keil.
DeMarle, in her run to the semifinals, beat Skaneateles’ Isabella Kroon 6-1, 6-1 and handled Holland Patent’s Rayh Spatto 6-1, 6-2 in the quarterfinals, while Miller had beaten HP’s Emma Shoemaker 6-4, 6-1 before her defeat to Bort.
Moving to doubles, Danforth and Emma Miller beat Marcellus’ Sophia Shaw and Maddie Vetsch 6-0, 6-1, and then dominated the quarterfinal, too, winning 6-1, 6-0 over Camden’s Katie Ammann and Brianna O’Drain.
The semifinal pitted Danforth and Miller against Marcellus’ Elaina Mahoney and Megan Mitchell, who had to survive a 6-0, 3-6, 6-1 first-round match with Cazenovia’s Mae Sayre and Emma Thornton before sweeping HP’s Jackie Mann and Sara Mierek a round later.
It didn’t prove close, Danforth and Miller smashing Mahoney and Mitchell 6-0, 6-1 to earn a finals spot against Cazenovia’s Alex Galle and Nina Royer.
In a three-set thriller postponed until Saturday due to wet weather, Danforth and Miller made a comeback after dropping a first-set tie-breaker, but still ended up on the wrong end of a 7-6, 2-6, 6-1 defeat.
Before that, Galle and Royer had won a semifinal 6-2, 6-1 over the Mustangs’ Kaitlyn Kemp and Morgan Walsh. Kemp and Walsh had got past Skaneateles’ Meg Benedict and Olivia Walker 6-2, 6-4 in the round of 16 before a 6-4, 6-2 quarterfinal conquest of another Cazenovia pair, Nova Berger and Emma Schwartz.
J-E’s Katelyn Precourt and Gabrielle Skotinski won 6-1, 6-4 over Holland Hawkes and Adrian Hauser (Camden), but lost in the quarterfinals to Galle and Royer 6-0, 6-0.
The Eagles’ Lexi Delfavero and Maggie Green lost in the first round, with Skaneateles’ Sofia Capozza and Sophia Soderberg dropping a round-of-16 match and J-D’s Delaney Dunham and Meghan Whalen doing the same to Berger and Schwartz 6-1, 6-4. Westhill had Sophie Langdon and Bridget Thornton losing in the first round.
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