A daunting assignment awaited four Liverpool girls tennis players as they competed Tuesday in the Section III Division I tournament at Syracuse University’s Skytop Courts.
The Warriors’ duos of Diana Kozenyatko-Gabby Underwood and Aryanna Davila-Crystal Morgans had to reach the semifinals if they wanted to make it to Drumlins for this week’s sectional state qualifier.
Kozenyatko and Underwood did win their opening-round match, handling Oswego’s Mikayla Hardesty and Alyssa Lapetino 6-3, 6-1, but that put them in the round of 16 against West Genesee’s top-seeded duo of Mikayla Mannara and Katie Viau.
Sure enough, Mannara and Viau beat Kozenyatko and Underwood 6-0, 6-1, eventually reaching the finals.
Meanwhile, Davila and Morgans were in the main bracket, and had a chance in its round-of-16 match, only to get turned away by Auburn’s Grace Baranick and Sydney Whitford 6-4, 6-4.
Baranick and Whitford lost in the quarterfinals to the Fayetteville-Manlius duo of Alexis Ahn and Martha Welker. In fact, except for Mannara and Viau, F-M swept the other semifinal spots with Ahn and Welker joined by the duos of Rachel Liu-Keara Polovick and Maddy Drapeau-Cassie Wojtasiewicz.