Sophomore Sofia Banifatemi, Clarence’s first singles player for the past two seasons, finished second at the Section VI singles tournament October 18 and 19 at the Lakewood YMCA near Jamestown, New York. Sofia was dominant throughout the regular season and rolled to the final with comfortable victories over players from North Tonawanda, Williamsville North, and Lancaster.

In the final, Sofia engaged in a roller coaster match against Williamsville South’s Syanne Tyson. Syanne, a senior, fought hard and overcame a mid-match leg injury to take the decisive third set by a 6-3 score. Sofia had some amazing shots, and both players left everything on the court.

Sofia is already a three-time Sectional champion (Doubles 2022, Team 2022, and Singles 2023) and will now head to the New York State Public High School Athletic Association tournament for the third consecutive season. This year, the tournament will be held at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, site of the U.S. Open. The tournament will begin Monday, October 28.

Eighth-grader Victoria Kiener also competed in the Sectional singles tournament and finished fourth, an impressive result against some very tough competition. Victoria played second singles during the regular season and made some incredible shots in the Sectional tournament to defeat players from Chautauqua Lake and Lancaster.

Senior captains Sahanna Varma and Gemma Hacker punched their ticket to the state tournament with their fourth-place finish in doubles. Sahanna and Gemma—the only “true” first doubles team to qualify for states (other teams feature first and second singles players playing as a team)—won their quarterfinal against a very good team from Williamsville East.

According to Coach Chambers, “Sahanna and Gemma played extremely smart tennis. This is the first time in my coaching career that I have had an actual doubles team (from the regular season) advance to the state tournament. They complemented each other perfectly: Sahanna has very strong groundstrokes and a great serve, while Gemma is able to lob and come forward to play the net. Her volleys are excellent. They simply played each point with the goal of getting Gemma to the net as quickly as possible and letting Sahanna set her up for a put-away volley off a deep groundstroke that the other team had trouble returning effectively. I am very happy for them because they have been tremendous leaders for our team and they deserved this as a payoff for all the work they've put in.”

Sahanna and Gemma will join Sofia in NYC next week and will look to continue their impressive postseason run.