League meet preps Warriors for sectionals

Maine West head coach Derrick Swistak doesn't worry too much about wins and losses or tournament results.

With a young team that lacks experience, Swistak is more interested with the improvement and progression of his boys than with his team's overall record. So when the Warriors had only their No. 1 doubles tandem of senior David Graf and junior Joe Popely advance past the first round of the CSL conference tournament at Maine East Friday and Saturday, Swistak wasn't overly concerned.

"We have a really young team and I think the most important thing for them is to get better at the basics and not give up on shots and not give up on games," Swistak said. "We really want to develop them into mature young men and that is a hurdle we are trying to advance. We don't have nearly as much match experience as other teams in our conference and I think that shows when our players are in matches. They don't necessarily know all of the tricks of the trade and what shots to hit, and it has really been a learning experience for them."

Swistak didn't place too much stock in the team's performance in the conference meet, considering that he moved a few of his younger varsity players down to the JV level. No. 2 singles player Brian Moss, a sophomore, and freshmen T.J. Helin and Ryan Lacerna all played on JV over the weekend in order for them to gain some much-needed match seasoning and confidence.

"I moved them down because they haven't had a lot of success in our conference against teams like Highland Park, Deerfield and Glenbrook North," Swistak said. "I just think that they are still a little bit raw and they are still new to conference games. I thought that they would have better success at the JV level and all of them won their first-round games on Friday and then lost in the second round before getting knocked out on Saturday.

"But our JV team ended up advancing five team members to the Saturday games, and I think that's the highest number of players who have advanced for us. This was definitely a move for the future."

Maine West will also take another step toward the future with the renovation of the team's tennis courts, with construction scheduled to begin this week. The school has invested time and money into re-doing the courts, which is a welcome improvement to the program.

"Our courts have been a little bit torn up so we are looking forward to having some really nice facilities next year," Swistak said.

Two players who won't get the chance to compete on those courts are Graf and senior Matt Lamberg, whom Swistak specifically praised as his team captains. Graf was part of the pairing which advanced to the 3-4 match on Saturday before falling to a team from Glenbrook North, and Lamberg played No. 4 singles for the Warriors over the weekend and beat his Niles North opponent in a three-set consolation match.

"David and Matt are our captains and they are both great leaders on the team," Swistak said. "They epitomize everything you could want as one of your teammates and one of your players."

Swistak and his team will find out their postseason seed on Thursday before they begin play at the Glenbrook South Sectional on Friday. Swistak plans to bring his younger players back up to varsity to compete in the sectional matches and hopefully give his team a boost of youthful excitement and energy.

"Anything can happen in the sectionals," Swistak said. "If you have a little bit of confidence, and as our team certainly saw this season, you can win some matches. We are going to focus hard on getting some good practice in with our sectional players and we will see what happens on Friday. Hopefully that can translate into some serious upsets."