ONONDAGA COUNTY – For their only regular-season meeting this fall, the Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse girls tennis teams chose a warm Monday afternoon in mid-September, and the battle did not disappoint.
Each side won three matches in straight sets, meaning the outcome hinged on a three-set doubles contest that would ultimately help the Warriors pull out a 4-3 decision.
It came in fourth doubles, where Gianna Washington and Gracie Scholz traded 6-1 sets with Allison Spoto and Lauren Foote before a final set where Washington and Scholz inched in front and stayed there, 6-4, to clinch Liverpool’s team win.
Before that, the Warriors already had swept singles. Emma Kohberger topped Calista Nguyen 6-1, 6-0, with Allie Kerneklian beating Madelyn Shaw 6-2, 6-0 and Milana D’Amico getting a 6-1, 6-2 sweep of Ainsley Hill.
C-NS fought back with Kaelin Prentice and Jessica Barnes beating Sydney Azzolino 6-3, 6-1, with Addyon Fedele and Andrea Iqbal winning 7-6, 6-3 over Elena Stojceski and Vienna D’Amico as Lauren Malec and Megan Mieves got past Judah Covell and Elliana Page 7-5, 6-3.
Still at home to face East Syracuse Minoa a day later, Liverpool’ again had a 4-3 match, but it went in the Spartans’ favor.
Milana D’Amico’s 6-4, 7-5 win over Kelly Li negated losses by Madelyn Turck and Berlyn Shore, while in doubles most of the matches were close ones.
In two tiebreaks Page and Vienna D’Amico edged Caroline Sitnik and Lila O’Brien 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-2), with Covell and Elena Stojceski paring up to top Jewelianna Hallock and Oso Ikhide 6-4, 7-6 (7-1). Though they pushed it to a third set, Zoe Dart and Selah Poulsen lost 6-3, 6-7 (8-6), 6-1 to Edith James and Evangeline Tsan.
Then, against Jamesville-DeWitt on Thursday, Liverpool managed just a single point in a 6-1 defeat to the Red Rams. Page got it in singles, rallying to beat Olivia Clark 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
The Warriors got two other doubles matches to go to three sets. In both instances, early leads got away with Azzolino and Vivian D’Amico falling 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 to Jaeda Robinson and Wenyan Ma as Dart and Judah Covell were in a third-set tiebreak, only to lose to Ella Azria and Anna Hasegawa 3-6, 6-0, 7-6 (7-5).
