THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 2008
St. Viator Tops In Conference
By BOBBY CHILVER
Journal Sports
St. Viator used a stellar regular season and solid performance last weekend to claim the East Suburban Catholic Conference title.
The Lions finished second in the tournament with 32 points, but add that with their ESCC-high 39 points gathered in the regular season and you've got yourself a conference champion.
Andrew Rice won the conference's first singles tournament while Taylor Blaney topped Notre Dame's Ronnie Wing for first at second singles.
Josh Concon and Pete Cote combined for third at second doubles while Michael Zielinski and Dean Tanilis were fourth at first doubles and Kevin Gilmore and Brian Letke took fourth at third doubles.
Benet won the tournament with 34 points but Viator's 18-1 record this season gave them a big enough head start to take the conference crown.
Prospect didn't have any conference champions over the weekend but three runner-up performances and solid depth helped the Knights take second place in the Mid Suburban League this year.
The MSL-East champion Knights racked up 42 points this weekend to tie with Fremd for second behind Barrington (52). Since Prospect had a division rank of one and Fremd two, the Knights earned second place in conference.
"We had a really great effort up and down the line-up," head coach Rick Huffman said.
First singles player Tom Kujawa led the Knights all year and continued that with strong play last weekend. He knocked off Hersey's Kevin Amarantos and Fremd's Brian Piotrowski to earn a spot in the championship, where he fell to Buffalo Grove's Johan Schwartz.
This performance was especially impressive considering he had been out of practice most of the week with strep throat. Huffman said he questioned if Kujawa would even be able to play but the senior showed up in a big way for the Knights.
At second singles, Prospect's Sam Pope also advanced to the championship, beating Elk Grove's Adam DeWitt and Fremd's Arjun Puranik before falling to Barrington's Kevin Karande.
In third singles, Matt Werderitch lost his opener to Fremd's Yoshiki Nakagawa but responded with two consecutive wins for fifth place overall.
The other Prospect championship match was at third doubles, where Dave Aron and Mike Rusin knocked of a Wheeling and Fremd duo, but fell to Barrington.
The other doubles teams weren't too shabby either as Zack Adamovic and Jon Kiefer earned third place at first doubles, as did Tony Brogni and Jon Graven at fourth doubles. Finally, Kevin Baumhart and Martin Bartkus were fourth at second doubles.
Huffman said he was especially proud of the doubles team of Adomovic/Kiefer and Aron/Rusin as they placed higher than their seed and beat Fremd opponents they had lost to in dual play this season.
After Prospect and Fremd, Buffalo Grove was fourth in the conference meet with Rolling Meadows fifth and Hersey sixth.
The Mustangs got a huge boost from third singles player Scott McLaughlin, who won his division over a Barrington opponent.
Hersey's top performers were Alex Moore and Jim Druffel, who placed fourth at fourth doubles.
Palatine was seventh overall, Schaumburg eighth, Conant ninth and Elk Grove 10th.
Conant's Eugene Itskovich took third place at third singles to lead the Cougars.
Wheeling was 11th and Hoffman Estates 12th.
Over at the Central Suburban League-South championships, New Trier won the title with 20 points.
Glenbrook South was second, Evanston third, Niles West fourth and Maine South fifth.
Niles West earned three fourth place finishes in Vova Zverkovsky at first singles, Pat Lodding at third singles and Dan Langer at fourth singles.
Zverkovsky was also named to the CSL-South All-Conference team.