On a hot day in Fairfax, Albemarle’s girls tennis doubles and singles squad as well as the boys doubles team fell in the Group AAA state tournament quarterfinals, ending the Patriots’ wildly successful
There aren’t many high school tennis players that can make the claim, but First Colonial’s Victoria Olivarez is now part of a short list of players who knocked off Napolitano during her high school career.
The First Colonial High star who is ranked No. 75 nationally, is only the fifth player to beat Napolitano in her career and rolled 6-1, 6-1.
The pair played 6 games with multiple deuces but Napolitano was unable to capitalize often enough and with the loss finished 26-1 on the season and ended her singles career with an impressive 101-7 record. Olivarez, who played No. 2 on the state championship team will face Esu Erdenenbat of Yorktown High in the semifinals
After briefly escaping the heat, Napolitano teamed with fellow senior Abby Lesnoff to take on juniors Kathryn Emery and Kitty Branche from Langley High School in the Group AA doubles tournament. The quartet met in last year’s state team quarterfinal.
After dropping the first game at love, the AHS duo pulled ahead 2-1. But then Langley broke back as part of a string of four-straight games to take control of the set. They took the first 6-2 and at the start of the second set the mercury was in the triple digits.
Emery started the set serving and gave the Langley duo a 3-1 lead, then had to play through 10 deuces before finally holding to make it 4-1. Lesnoff and Napolitano didn’t fold and quickly took the next two games to get back on serve at 3-4. But Langley proved too much and even with Albemarle threatening at the net fought through the last two games to close the set and match 6-3.
It was the first loss of the season for the Albemarle tandem and wraps up a spectacular three-year run going 48-5 over that span. Langley will now take on First Colonial’s pairing of Olivarez and Shannon Hudson.
The Albemarle boys doubles team of senior Lee Wilson and junior Timmy Shaw also lost, falling to Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology (TJHSST) pairing Chris Vrabel and Ben Rosenblum. 6-0, 6-0 in the boys state doubles quarterfinals.
