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Marmion salvages third-place showing
Updated: April 30, 2011 10:56PM
AURORA— Marmion boys tennis coach John Tsang has found that playing Geneva is getting to be a challenge.
Not because of the formidable Vikings lineup, but because things out of Tsang’s control are keeping his Cadets from even getting off one serve against them.
Marmion beat West Aurora 5-0 Saturday morning at the Blackhawks Tennis Invitational and then fell 3-2 to eventual champion St. Charles North, setting up a third-place matchup with the Vikings. Except prom got in the way and Geneva defaulted, leaving the Cadets an early ride home.
“We look forward to these Saturday tournaments because it gives the kids a chance to play stronger competition,” Tsang said. “And we were hoping we would get far in this tournament. We’re a little disappointed we didn’t get a chance to play Geneva. Somehow we had a schedule mix-up earlier in the year and we didn’t get a chance to play. We got rained out at their invitational. So finally we’re together and the prom situation got in the way. Hopefully next year we’ll get to see them.”
Despite the unfortunate ending to the Cadets’ day, Tsang, who is also the girls coach at Rosary, is seeing good things coming from the program.
“We have a young team and we’re still getting better every time,” he added. “They showed me a lot today, especially in the match against St. Charles North. We came up just a match short and our first doubles gave them a run for their money.”
The North Stars No. 1 doubles tandem of John Mittvick and Danny Oakes managed to escape against the Cadets’ Will Graft and Jackson Rettig to remain undefeated on the season.
Meanwhile, Geneva beat St. Charles East 3-2 in the first round, but fell 3-2 in a tough match against Glenbard West before bowing out without being able to see how they’d respond against Marmion.
“My lineup was a bit adjusted today. I have big prom issues,” Vikings coach Peter Burkhardt said. “Actually, my regular third doubles team left early because they had a prom thing. They didn’t even play in that second match. So I was down a little bit with my depth, but the other team played well. It was whoever adjusted the most to the wind.”
Many of the eight teams here looked at this tournament as a chance to gauge their lineups against possible postseason opponents.
“It’s good to take a look at your opponents in the sectionals,” Burkhardt said. “It’s good to not go in cold as far as trying to figure out matchups. There’s a bit of a chess game going on between coaches about who will play where. If you have one elite kid in a sectional then you really have tough decisions to make.”
Doubles led the way for St. Charles North in the finals against Glenbard West with the No. 3 team of John Terwilliger and Eli McCray losing the first match 6-0 and being down 4-3 in the second before coming back to win the second 6-4 and then the tiebreak 10-7. The 3-2 team victory gave the North Stars back-to-back championships against the Hilltoppers at the West Aurora tourney.
Glenbard sophomore Jacob Koch took down the North Stars’ Grant Spellman at No. 2 singles 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (11-9), turning the remaining match at No. 3 doubles into a winner-take-all battle.
The Blackhawks fell to Marmion 5-0 and then narrowly lost to Timothy Christian 3-2 in the consolation bracket at Washington Middle School. They rebounded from that loss to beat Hampshire for seventh place.
“Marmion is in our sectional so we got to see them,” West Aurora coach Adam Camp said. “The nice thing about this tournament is its structured more as a team event. You move on as a team rather than move on as an individual. A lot of these other weekend ones you have first singles, second singles. I like this one because it brings everyone in this area and they get to play each other as a team format.”
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