West Aurora’s Emily Stefancic, Geneva’s Kirby Einck earn All-State honors

West Aurora’s Emily Stefancic and Geneva’s Kirby Einck were the last Aurora area girls standing Friday at the IHSA State Tennis meet.

Stefancic, a 17-32 seed who opened with three straight wins on Thursday, fell 6-1, 6-0 Friday to New Trier’s Carol Finke, who committed earlier this week to play for Yale.

“(Finke’s) a very nice player whose coach felt she was a top four player,” West Aurora assistant coach Neal Ormond said. “That was not a bad loss at all.”

Problem was, Stefancic struggled to move past it and then was upset 6-1, 6-3 by Glenbard East freshman Priscilla Palermo in their sixth round consolation bout.

“Emily was so bummed about the first loss she couldn’t get it out of her head, but it wasn’t a bad loss,” Ormond said.

“She had beaten the Glenbard East girl in the regular season and in the semifinals of the DVC. That was a disappointing loss.”

Einck, a junior who was also a 17-32 seed, went 2-1 on Thursday and also reached a sixth round consolation bout on Friday, winning two matches before falling to De La Salle’s Khalia Powell 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 to finish 4-2 in the tourney.

Stefancic and Einck both improved on last year’s top 25 finish and earned All-State honors.

Oswego East singles players Sajela Harlow (3-2 in the tourney) and sophomore Jaiere Harlow bowed out in the fifth and fourth consolation rounds, respectively. Kaneland’s Samantha Schrepferman also went out in the fourth round.

Batavia’s 17-32 seeded doubles team of Jenny Mizikar and Amelia Cogan reached the fourth round of the consolation bracket, but fell 6-4, 2-6, 7-5 to a duo from Neuqua Valley (Riti Vohra-Taylor Hershey).

Rosary’s Megan Conlin and Andrea Goyao bowed out in a fourth-round consolation bout to a seeded Lyons duo. The Royals trailed 6-1, 5-3 but had to retire due to a Goyao injury.

“Andrea was reaching for a high volley and came down and rolled her ankle and wasn’t able to proceed,” said Rosary coach John Tsang, noting it ended up being a touching scene as Conlin proceeded to carry her teammate off the court.

“They were in the process of closing the gap and were close to cutting it to 5-4 when that happened. They played really well, it’s unfortunate it had to end that way.”

Oswego East’s Alexis Blackmon-Leenga Hwang reached the fifth round of the consolation bracket before falling 6-3, 6-4 to Julia Li-Jessica Hu of Naperville North.