With strong performances in a quartet of matches last week, West Genesee girls tennis players Angelina Llanos and Katie Viau earned a berth in this weekend’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships – and got a bit of payback, too.
The annual Section III state qualifying tournament returned to Drumlins, where 16 doubles teams vied for those three state berths, with Llanos and Viau starting out as the no. 4 seed.
In Tuesday’s opening round, the Wildcats pair handled Whitesboro’s Kyrie Cleary and Karlie Cubino 6-2, 6-2. Next was a quarterfinal against Liverpool’s Julie Schewe and Angelica Underwood, whom they had met in singles during the regular season.
The doubles match went to WG’s duo, though, as Llanos and Viau won 6-2, 6-2, moving within one match of a state tournament berth.
Thursday’s semifinal pitted the top seed from Fayetteville-Manlius, Anna Manta and Phoebe Wang, against Llanos and Viau. When they had met five days earlier in the sectional Division I final, Manta and Wang rolled 6-1, 6-1.
But at Drumlins, and with a state tournament berth at stake, everything changed.
A close first set was 5-5 until Llanos and Viau broke serve, and then took the set 7-5. Newly energized, the Wildcats’ pair then beat Manta and Wang 6-4 in the second set to claim that state tournament bid, the fourth in Viau’s decorated career.
And it didn’t end there because, in the finals, Llanos and Viau prevailed over Jamesville-DeWitt’s Mona Farah and Tara Pollock, claiming the first set 6-3 and then having an injury to a J-D player end the match.
Still, Farah and Pollock advanced to the state tournament that gets underway Saturday at Tri-Valley Fitness in Latham, while Manta and Wang won the third-place match over Cazenovia’s Alex Galle and Nina Royer for the final berth.
Llanos and Viau weren’t alone among local sides, either, as Marcellus, Skaneateles and Jordan-Elbridge each brought players to the state qualifier, too.
For the Lakers, Ella Danforth and Emma Miller gave Manta and Wang a tough opening-round match before taking a 6-4, 6-4 defeat, while the Mustangs’ Kaitlyn Kemp and Morgan Walsh fell to Clinton’s Mei Cassidy-Heekin and Madeline Walters 6-3, 6-2.
In singles, J-E’s Anise Bort, who finished second in the sectional Division III singles tournament, went up against the no. 2 seed, Utica-Notre Dame’s Ellen Lyga, in the first round and won the opening game before Lyga took over and prevailed 6-1, 6-1.
Marcellus had two singles players on hand as Danielle Copp took a 6-0, 6-0 defeat to Baldwinsville’s Brooke Tutor and Kathleen DeMarle, in the same quarter of the bracket as Bort, lost to Phoenix’s Brielle DeRoberts 6-0, 6-2.
Ellen Lyga went on to advance to the finals, earning a trip to the state tournament along with Christian Brothers Academy’s duo of Gieselle Vlassis and Grace DelPino.
