SCHENECTADY – The Westhampton doubles team of Julia Stabile and Matilda Buchen don’t exactly make for an intimidating sight. They both stand about 5-3 and neither possesses the kind of serve that makes onlookers gawk. But maybe that’s what made them so dangerous this weekend at the NYSPHSAA Girls Tennis Individual Championships.

And they were absolutely lethal.

Stabile, a senior, and Buchen, a junior, quietly dismantled the field over three days at this city’s Central Park tennis courts. The Suffolk doubles champions captured the state title on Saturday with a quick takedown of top-seeded Emma Ha and Kay Cottrell of Scarsdale, 6-2, 6-3 in the final.

Ha and Cottrell were 24-0 this season before the doubles final.

“They played the best I’ve ever seen them play – just relentless,” Hurricanes coach Matt Reed said of the No. 2-seeded duo. “They brought their game to a new level, the kind needed to win here. Champions play their best when they have to.”

Stabile and Buchen are the second Westhampton entrants to win a state individual title, according to USTA records, and the first since Kelly Federico and Brenda Kacke took the 1980 doubles title.

In 2022, Stabile and Buchen reached the quarterfinals and ended up taking seventh place. After each win in this tournament, the pair humbly said they were merely hoping to get one round further this time. In winning the title, they almost seemed to have surprised themselves.

“This was more than we ever could’ve asked for,” Buchen said.

“Everyone in this tournament is so skilled,” Stabile said. “To win the state championship really is a surprise.”

The Hurricanes executed a strategy against Ha and Cottrell perfectly. They took short angular shots that forced the Raiders off the baseline and made them take shots without time to get their feet planted. They placed shots that forced Ha and Cottrell to keep switching sides of the court. And they made some hard volleys past the player at the net – with Stabile’s hard forehand and Buchen’s quick backhand – that they placed just inside the sideline.

“Those shots down the line are not easy, but if you have it, it’s a great weapon,” Reed said. “Both of them have the confidence to take that shot and it gives that player at the net another thing to worry about.”

“You have to have the opportunity to take a shot like that, but when we got one we took it,” Buchen said.

They won the last five games to take the first set and then broke the Raiders serve twice in the first four games of the second set en route to the win.

In team play this season, Stabile and Buchen have played together about half the time and played singles half the time. Their doubles record this season is now 19-0 including wins in the league, county and state tournaments.

And there could be more ahead for them. Westhampton (16-1) meets Half Hollow Hills East (15-1) for the Suffolk County large school championship Monday morning at Eastern Athletic Club in Bayport with the Long Island title game set for Tuesday and the final two rounds of the state tournament slated for Friday at the National Tennis Center.

“A feeling like this is amazing,” Stabile said. “I hope everyone on our team gets to feel this next week.”

Garden City Duo takes third

Third place was decided in a re-match of the Nassau County doubles championship and bore the same result. The fourth-seeded Garden City tandem of Kalya Castellano and Agelina Bravo defeated the sisters Andrea and Lina Vases of Manhasset, 7-6 (3), 6-3. The Bayport-Blue Point sister duo of Emilia Romano and Evie Romano took seventh place with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 over Anna Wheat and Ada Radomski of Amherst.