Girls' tennis: Annville-Cleona, Elco teams headed for district doubles semis

It will be an all-Lebanon County semifinal in the District 3 Class AA doubles tennis tournament on Saturday at Hershey Racquet Club.

Elco's Sydney Nye and Kelsey Stubblebine and Annville-Cleona's Alicia Hitz and Emma Lerchen made sure of that with their performances on Friday.

The two county duos each picked up a pair of straight-set victories during the opening day of the district tourney, setting up a 1 p.m. semifinal Saturday, back at HRC.

Hitz and Lerchen, the No. 2 seeds and reigning Lancaster-Lebanon League AA doubles champs, took down Regan Donecker and Olivia Weaver of Pequea Valley 7-6 (7-1), 6-1 in the first round before rolling past Melanie Haas and Alicia Purcell of Hamburg by a 6-1, 6-4 count to earn their semifinal berth.

The unseeded Nye and Stubblebine, meanwhile, upended Naomi Bronkema and Allyssa Peters of Lancaster Mennonite, 6-3, 6-2 in the first round, then ousted third-seeded Alexis Welker and Maddie Young of Bishop McDevitt 6-4, 6-4 to set up the meeting with HItz and Lerchen.

The winner of the all-county battle will advance to the final later Saturday and also sew up an automatic berth in the PIAA state tournament.