A fine season for Liverpool girls tennis players Julia Schewe and Angelica Underwood culminated with a solid showing at last Tuesday’s Section III state qualifying tournament at Drumlins.
In all, 16 doubles teams and 16 singles players took part, with the top three finishers eventually making it to this weekend’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships in Latham.
When the bracket came out, Schewe and Underwood found themselves paired up against New Hartford’s Rachel DeRocco and Tess Evans in the first round, and the Warriors’ pair dominated that match, getting a 6-0, 6-0 shutout.
Now, in the quarterfinals, they faced the no. 4 seed, West Genesee’s Angelina Llanos and Katie Viau. They had met in singles play Sept. 12, with Schewe losing in straight sets to Viau and Underwood dropping a third-set tie-breaker to Llanos.
The doubles match featured some fine points from Schewe and Underwood, but Llanos and Viau proved too good together, prevailing in a pair of 6-2 sets.
Not stopping there, Llanos and Viau went on to win the tournament Thursday, knocking off the top-seeded Fayetteville-Manlius duo of Anna Manta and Phoebe Wang before topping Jamesville-DeWitt’s Mona Farah and Tara Pollock in the finals.
That trio of doubles teams, along with singles players Gieselle Vlasiss, Grace DelPino (both from Christian Brothers Academy) and Ellen Lyga (Utica-Ntore Dame), will compete in the state tournament.
