Cara Evans seeks to defend her state championship, and Lily Lengyel hopes for a repeat with a new partner.
Both District 2 standouts compete this weekend at the Hershey Racquet Center during the PIAA Tennis Championships that start Friday morning.
Evans takes the court first. Last year’s Class 2A singles champion faces Biglerville sophomore Presley Plank in the 8 a.m. session. Plank is the third-place finisher from District 3.
Lengyel and her partner Adithi Velaga, the District 2 champions, play Trinity’s Olivia Malinoski and Leana Tran in the Class 2A doubles tournament at 10 a.m. Lengyel won state gold last season with partner Emma Cuck, who graduated.
Abington Heights has three players at the state championship event.
Freshman Addie Stark plays Hempfield freshman Elisha Yan, the District 3 runner-up, in the Class 3A 12 p.m. session.
The Lady Comets doubles team of Amishi Amit and Sammy Rosenstein plays Chambersburg’s Leah Wadel and Charley Kalathas at 2 p.m. Wadel-Kalathas finished second in the District 3 tournament.
First-round winners advance to the afternoon and evening quarterfinals. The semifinals and finals are Saturday starting at 8 a.m.
Evans followed up her gold-medal-winning junior season with a dominant 2026.
She finished 15-0 in the regular season, then won two singles matches in the District 2 Class 2A Team Championships. Evans stormed to five singles tournament wins, losing only two games, and enters the state tournament with a 22-0 record.
“I am very excited,” Evans said. “My goal was to make it back. I am going to take it one match at a time, one point at a time. It is my senior year, and I am going to go out and play my best. I approach every match with no expectations and no pressure on myself.
“I am going to play to win, focus, have some fun.”
Last season, Evans finished 24-0, and she has an 88-3 career record. She defeated Quaker Valley’s Avary Allan, 6-1, 6-0; Lower Moreland’s Khaya Lukov, 6-3, 6-3; Biglerville’s Paytyn Plank, 6-1, 6-0; and Belle Vernon’s Gabriella Dusi, 6-2, 4-6, 6-1.
Allan, the second-place finisher in District 7, Lukov, the District 1 champion, and Paytyn Plank, the District 3 champion, are in this year’s tournament.
A District 2 player won the Class 2A gold for the fourth straight season. Wyoming Seminary’s Ilana Rosenthal won three titles from 2022 to 2024. Riverside’s Karissa Ghigiarelli was the first Lackawanna League player to win a PIAA Class 2A title in 2019.
Two other District 2 players won PIAA Class 2A gold. Crestwood’s Christine Kansky won titles in 2001 and 2003, and Wyoming Seminary’s Natalie Joanlanne won in 2013.
Lengyel is in the doubles tournament for the third straight season. She teamed with Alyssa Wigley to reach the quarterfinals in 2024 and won the title with Cuck last season.
Stark will make her state tournament debut.
She enters with a 15-3 record. Stark won four straight-set matches during the District 2 Class 3A Singles Championships.
Amit and Rosenstein repeated as the District 2 Class 3A doubles champions. They lost to Downingtown East’s Mahi Patel and Joya Mentrikoski, 6-0, 6-1, in the PIAA first round.