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PG South: Doubles team caps excellent season for Peters
Thursday, November 12, 2009

You might never want to cross Julie Stroyne.

A senior at Peters Township High School, Stroyne has proven she's quite adept at revenge.

Three separate times in her high school tennis career, Stroyne has been part of a team -- be it a doubles duo or with the Indians entire team -- that lost in a WPIAL championship match, then defeated that same team not long thereafter with arguably more on the line: A PIAA title.

"I guess I don't mind winning states instead of WPIALs," Stroyne said via phone the day after winning the PIAA doubles championship with Caroline Nixon Saturday, the shrug apparent in the tone of her voice. "It's weird how it's worked out. I don't know."

This season's PIAA doubles title is the latest evidence of Stroyne's ability to do a little better the second time around. She and Nixon, a sophomore, teamed to win the Section 5-AAA doubles tournament and cruised to the WPIAL tournament final last month before losing, 6-3, 2-6, 7-5 to Pine-Richland's Olivia Heim and Taylor Perz.

No worries. The top two doubles teams in the WPIAL qualify for the PIAA Class AAA tournament, and Stroyne and Nixon lost only a combined two games in winning first-round and quarterfinal matches last Friday at the Hershey Racquet Club before a three-set win against a team from Manheim Township in the semifinals.

That set up a rematch with Heim and Perz in the final, and this time, Stroyne and Nixon breezed to a 6-1, 6-3 victory.

"I think overall, the first time we played them, we got to know them and know how they play," said Nixon, whose brother, Andrew, won a boys' PIAA doubles title with Doug Subosits in 2008.

"We used that against them when we played then again, and I also think we had more experience being in finals of states. They had never been there before. We had practiced doubles a ton between WPIALs and states, and that's what made the difference."

Last season, Stroyne and Nixon took silver medals at both the WPIAL and PIAA doubles tournaments. North Allegheny's Kelly Whelan and Jen Larimore pulled off a rarity by beating Stroyne twice in championship matches that season.

Stroyne's propensity to gain vengeance for defeats started in 2006, when she was a freshman doubles player on an Indians team that lost to Shady Side Academy in the WPIAL Class AAA team tournament final but recovered to beat Shady Side for the PIAA championship.

The following season, Stroyne and Emily Palko were WPIAL doubles runners-up, losing to Whelan and Larimore in the final, 6-1, 4-6, 6-3.

But as one might expect, they advanced to the PIAA championship match, played Whelan and Larimore again and won, 6-3, 6-2.

Counting Peters Township's run to the PIAA team title two weeks ago in Hershey, that's four gold medals and one silver in five trips to Chocolate Town for Stroyne ... and in three of the four wins, a WPIAL championship loss was avenged.

"Julie's such a great player, and I'm really going to miss her," Nixon said. "We worked really well together. I kind of worked to keep her loose, and she worked to keep me focused."

Also competing in Hershey from the PG South area, Chartiers-Houston junior Tanya Timko, the WPIAL Class AA singles champion, was runner-up in the PIAA Class AA singles tournament. Timko won three matches before losing to Julia Casselbury of Lancaster Country Day in the title match.

In Class AA doubles, South Park juniors Elise Carter and Tracy Gibson won two competitive matches in the first two rounds Friday before losing in the semifinals on Saturday and ultimately finishing in fourth place.

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First published on November 12, 2009 at 12:00 am