SCHENECTADY – Another special season for the Baldwinsville girls tennis team concluded with four of its players – two in singles, two in doubles – taking part in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships in Schenectady.
Having won the Section III state qualifier a week earlier, Lainey Nesbitt and Sonia Nadzan represented B’ville in doubles, while in singles Mira Nadzan and Ayla Kalfass were part of the picture.
Originally, the tournament was set to take place indoors at Schenectady’s Sportime facility, which hosted the NYSPHSAA tournament in 2021 and 2022. But a fire at that complex earlier this year led to reconstruction that was still ongoing in the areas where spectators were usually allowed.
This, along with good outdoor weather, allowed the tournament to get moved across town to Schenectady’s Central Park, where things got underway Thursday after a brief rain delay.
In singles, Mira Nadzan, a freshman, faced senior Riley Schmitz, from Academy of the Holy Names in Section II. And Schmitz prevailed in straight sets 6-0, 6-1.
Meanwhile, Kalfass, a sophomore, met a similar fate in her opening-round match, running into Herricks’ Angel Walia and taking a 6-1, 6-0 loss as Walia eventually advanced to the quarterfinals against Bronxville’s top-seeded Victoria McEnroe.
The doubles bracket had Nesbitt and Sonia Nadzan against Sayville’s K Person and M Albertelli from Long Island. Though close in the first set, Nesbitt and Nadzan lost, 6-4, and then dropped a 6-0 second set.
Of all the Section III players in the NYSPHSAA tournament fields, only Jamesville-DeWitt’s Mona Farah, in singles, made it out of the first round, though she lost in the round of 16 to Scarsdale’s Charlene Dong. Doubles teams from Oneida (Myah Rainbow and Julianna Caroli) and Fayetteville-Manlius (Selena Chen and Shreya Bhattacharya) both had first-round defeats, too.
