Tennis
Sklar, Thornton among many area players in semifinals today
Nine individuals or doubles teams from the Baltimore metro area advanced to the second day of the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association state tennis tournament at Olney Manor Recreation Park on Friday.
Atholton's Matt Sklar and Severna Park's Austin Yannone advanced in boys singles; Marriotts Ridge's Abby Thornton and Patterson Mill's Brooke Santoriello advanced in girls singles; Mount Hebron's Tess Weber and Rohil Bahri advanced in mixed doubles; Westminster's Nathan Devereux and Tate Seibel, and South River's Alex Bach and Robert Rider advanced in boys doubles; and Liberty's Elle Shatto and Abby Brecker, and Severna Park's Grace Appel and Lauren Breitenger advanced in girls doubles. All of them won two matches to reach the semifinal round, which is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. today.
It was a big day for Howard County.
Sklar, the county and regional champion in boys singles, beat Ethan Brown of C. Milton Wright, 6-0, 6-0, and Pascal Lee of Bethesda-Chevy Chase, 7-5, 6-2, to advance to the semifinals for the second straight year. Sklar will face the third-seeded Yannone, who beat Linganore's Harry Rasmussen, 6-2, 6-0, and Bowie's Neerav Ganjoo, for a berth in the final.
Thornton, also a county and regional champion this season, made quick work of Amanda Linke of Arundel, 6-1, 6-0, and Lili Izadi of Liberty, 6-2, 6-1, to move to the semifinals for the second time, and first since 2014, when she finished fourth. Thornton, who is seeded behind Wootton's Miranda Deng, who beat Thornton in the quarterfinals last year and in the semifinals in 2014, will face unseeded Lea Owens of Sherwood in the next round.
Mixed-doubles county and regional champions Weber and Rohil beat Bruce Hoosier and Emma Reider of Hereford, 6-0, 6-1, in the opening round and then defeated Christian Lansinger and Caroline Dangel of Liberty, 6-2, 6-7, 7-4, in the quarterfinals. They will face third-seeded Ethan Kowalski and Jessica Fatemi of Walter Johnson in the semifinals.