Upper St. Clair’s top player is ruled ineligible

Tri-State Sports & News Service

Upper St. Clair sophomore Marlo Schiffman would have been considered one of the favorites to challenge Norwin senior Maria Santilli in the WPIAL Class 3A singles tournament.

As a freshman, Schiffman pulled off three upsets as she came all the way out of the No. 10 seed to make it into the finals where she lost, 6-2, 6-2, to the Cincinnati recruit.

Unfortunately, though, there won’t be a rematch.

Schiffman missed most of the season with stomach ulcers and only competed in four matches for the Panthers. Because of that, the WPIAL ruled her ineligible to compete in either the singles or doubles tournaments. The stipulation is a player must be active in at least six team matches to participate in individual postseason play.

“That was a big argument because how could players from other teams could play one match and say they’re injured when they’re actually training and the WPIAL said that we fell through the cracks, meaning that we get caught or somebody told on Marlo,” Upper St. Clair coach Renee Villani said. “They investigated it and some of the players were put under a microscope. It is what it is.”

Schiffman is the No. 7 sophomore in the state.

Without any questions about her qualifying once again for the state tournament, however, Upper St. Clair can now set up its doubles teams for the Section 4 tournament next week. What will be interesting to see is if the freshman tandem of Danni Gibbons and Gia Winseck hold up in a full tournament.

Gibbons and Winseck only lost one match during the regular season.

“They’ve been my No. 1 doubles team all season,” Villani said. “I think that’s pretty good that a freshman team has only lost one match all year. I think that’s pretty impressive.”

Class 2A

As the WPIAL individual singles championships wind down, most coaches take the No. 1 and No. 2 players on their teams who weren’t able to either make it through the sections or earn a berth in the state finals and meld them together as a doubles team to compete in the tournament next week.

Whitney Snyder isn’t most coaches.

Insteadof assembling a tandem composed of singles players,he will instead use the two doubles teams — Lydia Elste and Alina Mattson, and Victoria Keller and Olivia McLeod — that helped the Panthers win their fifth WPIAL Class 2Atitle last week.

“I think that the main goal is never section or WPIAL or state doubles, but the main goal is just extra practice to get ready for the team stuff,” Snyder said. “If they’re not partnered together in match play, with the current schedule with not playing a team match for 20 days, it’s an eternity.”

Prior to last season, Sewickley Academy had made it to the WPIAL finals for eight consecutive years with four titles and had moved on to the PIAA team tournament every time. In 2016, however, the WPIAL opted to change its format and play the team championships before the individual singles and doubles competitions, thus making for the time disparity between the WPIAL and PIAA tournament, which is set to open with a preliminaryround on Oct. 24.

While Sewickley Academy will have its doubles teams set, others will have waited until at least Thursday’s first day of the WPIAL singles tournament to figure out their doubles plans.

Indiana could possibly have its WPIAL runners-up from last year, Lauren Bertig and Margaux Marcus, as an intact team this year. Beaver could also have a former state qualifier in Devyn Campbell as a doubles participant if she doesn’t earn one of the three state singles slots in the classification.

Class 3A

Like Class 2A, most Class 3A teams wait until after the WPIAL singles are completed before making a decision as to whether their players will compete in the doubles tournament.

For Fox Chapel, it’s pretty simple. If Amanda Nord and Charlotte James don’t make it into the state finals in singles, they will be paired up for doubles.

“I don’t think they’ll do any actual doubles preparations,” Fox Chapel coach Alex Slezak said. “They’re real good friends and they practice together and play a lot. It will probably take the beginning of the section tournament to figure some things out for doubles and then go from there.”

Nord, who last week verbally committed to play at James Madison, could be headed for history if she ends up in the doubles tournament. The No. 4 senior in the state would join Kelly Deep of Moon as the only girls players ever to win the title all four years.

Nord is also a three-time state finalist and has won back-to-back titles, first with Laurel Shymansky in 2015 and with James last year. Despite their success, they did not practice their doubles game that much a year ago either.

“They did real well last year and we didn’t do a lot of specific preparation,” Slezak said. “They’re just two very good players and good friends and they came together.”