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(UPDATED) STAC GIRLS TENNIS: OWEGO'S ANGELONE, HANKEY CLAIM CLASS B DOUBLES TITLE (10 PHOTOS) (2018-10-12)

Tioga County Sports Report
OWEGO - Owego's Kayla Hankey and Lauren Angelone knocked off the top two seeds to win the Section IV Class B doubles championship on their home court here Friday.

The Indian duo would actually rally from a 4-1 deficit in the first set of the quarterfinals to sweep all three matches on a cold and windy day.

"They played great as a team," said Owego head coach Erica Haray-Butcher. "They worked well together. They communicated together. They stayed positive, even when they started to slip a little bit here and there. They were aggressive at the net."

Following a first round bye, Angelone and Hankey defeated Norwich's Natalie Bennati and Riley Marsh in the quarterfinals, 6-4, 6-0. Next up was the top seed, the Vestal pair of Elizabeth Hartley and Cate Reynolds. Angelone and Hankey downed them, 6-2, 6-2. Angelone and Hankey would dispatch of the second-seeded Norwich tandem of Ava Granquist and Katie Gawronski by the same score, 6-2, 6-2, to garner the gold medals.

"Lauren does get to play at the net a lot in singles and now that she's playing doubles, she's up there a lot more and she's really going after it. She's aggressive there. Kayla asked to play in the doubles tournament and she's been playing outstanding as a doubles player," Haray-Butcher said. "I'm very proud of both of them. They both played very well. They're a solid team together."

Hankey played first singles all season, going 9-7 overall. Angelone moved between third and fourth singles, and is 11-5 overall.

Owego's other doubles team of Annamae Joyce and Rachel Raftis were unseeded and opened with a 6-1, 6-0 win over Haley Mangini and Maia Tripp from Johnson City. They fell to Vestal's Eeshah Ahmed and Shreya Nippani in the quarterfinals, 4-6, 6-2, 6-2. Ahmed and Nipping would go on to defeat their top-seeded teammates in the third-place match.

"Rachel Raftis and Annamae Joyce made it past the first round. They won their first match and then they lost their second, but they did very well," Haray-Butcher said. "Very proud of how far they got this year."

Joyce finished the season 7-7 and Rafts was 6-8. Both players competed at first or second doubles and had three different partners.

In the singles bracket, the Indians' Amy Huang went 1-1 and Ella Kopalek dropped her only match. Both played well, according to Haray-Butcher.

"Amy Huang did a good job too," she said. "The player she lost to is outstanding, so you can't complain about that, and Ella came out and tried her best also ... and played hard and wound up losing, but she had a pretty solid season as our No. 2 player."

Huang beat M-E's Hannah Green in the first round, 2-6, 6-3, 7-5, then lost to Lucie Martin of Norwich in the quarters, 6-1, 6-1. Kopalek received a bye, then fell to Norwich's Parker Walsh, 6-1, 5-7, 1-6. Martin would go on to capture runner-up honors and Walsh went on to place fourth. Huang finished the season at 10-5 and Kopalek was 8-6.

Vestal would win the team title with 43 points, Norwich was second with 33 and Owego took third with 28.

"Overall, I think our team did well," Haray-Butcher said. "And I'm super proud of our doubles team. I think they did outstanding."

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IN PHOTO 1: Owego's Section IV Class B Doubles champions, Lauren Angelone (front) and Kayla Hankey. PHOTOS 1-9 BY TIM TAYLOR. PHOTO 10 COURTESY OF ERICA HARAY-BUTCHER.

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