CENTRAL NEW YORK – Area high school tennis teams took full advantage of warm, sunny conditions with a series of early-season matches in their respective leagues.
Westhill roared to a 7-0 shutout of Phoenix in its season opener Aug. 31, the Warriors seeing the doubles teams of Isabella Johnson-Katie Rogers, Samanatha Burkett-Phoebe Gumaer and Emily Balduzzi-Megan Battista drop just four games in six sets of singles play.
One doubles match and one singles match was forfeited, but Julia Flegel played and handled Sabrina Haynes 6-0, 6-1 as Cadence Ramsing beat Finley Harwood 6-3, 6-0.
Back in action last Thursday against Mexico, the Warriors again won 7-0. In single-set matches to 10 games, Ramsing fought past Nataleigh Smith 10-5 as Fiegel beat Jessica Hill 10-2 and Clare Delay routed Zoe Grzesik 10-1. Johnson and Rogers won their doubles match 10-4 over Ella Blunt and Avery Mack.
Marcellus rolled Sept. 1 to a 6-1 win over Bishop Grimes, helped by a trio of forfeits as the doubles teams of Korinne Kemp-Sofia Tufenkjian and Abby Finn-Katie Devereaux each won in straight sets.
Then the Mustangs beat Homer 5-2 last Tuesday, largely by sweeping all four doubles matches. The teams of Finn-Devereaux, Ella Lutwin-Molly Moses and Caitlyn Sammon-Zofia Polkowski each won in two sets, while Kemp and Tufenkjian ralllied from an early deficit and survived a third-set tie-breaker to beat Emma Effinger and Lauren Franco 4-6, 6-2, 7-6.
Homer got both of its points in singles, with Xian Angotti dropping a close 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 decision to Ginny Park, but Shaelyn Kelly earned an insurance point when she beat Mackenzie Skodzinsky 6-3, 6-1.
Maintaining this hot start, the Mustangs blanked Phoenix by the same 7-0 margin that Westhill did before, improving to 3-1 on the season.
Skaneateles rebounded from an early setback against Cazenovia by taking on Manlius Pebble Hill Aug. 31 and earning a 5-2 victory over the Trojans.
But the Lakers fell to Christian Brothers Academy last Tuesday by that same 5-2 margin, swept in doubles as none of the four Skaneateles teams – Katie Danforth-Caitlin Day, Georgia Kriedler-Brie Butler, Maddie Vance-Makayla Barton and Millie Wu-Ellie Sharma – managed to win a set.
It was better in singles thanks to Isabelle Soderberg, who beat Rowan Doyle 6-4, 6-1 in first singles. Eva DeJesus got a 6-2, 6-0 romp over Allie Mancini as Addison Ziegler took a 7-6 (7-3), 6-2 loss to Audrey Schaefer. On Friday afternoon, the Lakers lost 4-3 to Chittenango, despite singles wins from Soderberg and DeJesus.
