Story posted Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Titans Lead Local Effort At State Finals
Glenbrook South's Michael Moore competes in last weekend's state tennis finals. The Titans standout took second place in state in singles. (Tom Wessell/The Journal)
Journal-area tennis players had decent success last weekend at the IHSA state championships, held in the Northwest suburbs on High School Dist. 214 courts.
Glenbrook South boys tennis finished fourth in the state last weekend after outstanding performances from both singles and doubles players.
Michael Moore fell just short of the singles state championship, losing in a tight title match, while the doubles team of Tommy McNichols and Michael Sellitto bounced back from a semifinal loss to take third place overall.
Moore settled for second in state but just nearly came home with a state championship as he fell to Stevenson's Blake Bazarnik in tiebreakers, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7-4).
Moore cruised through his first five wins and then defeated defending state champion Denis Bogatov of Warren in the semifinals. That match also went to tiebreakers as Moore and Bogatov battled for nearly three and a half hours.
The 6-1, 6-7 (3-7), 7-6, (7-3) win earned Moore a chance at the state title but he had only a few hours to recover from the marathon semifinal match.
Meanwhile, at doubles, McNichols and Sellitto won their first five matches to advance to the state semifinals. There they fell to a Stevenson duo (6-0, 6-4) but bounced back well in the third place match.
It again took tiebreakers, but McNichols and Sellitto eventually proved victorious over New Trier's John Beam and Brantner Jones, 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7-1).
Glenbrook South's other singles player, Ben Hoogland, added plenty of points, advancing all the way to the consolation semifinals before bowing out.
Hoogland went 6-2 over the weekend, losing in the fourth round of the championship bracket, but responding with three more wins to get to the consolation semis.
The other Titans doubles team of Fred Tye and Konrad Ryba earned another point, finishing 1-2 on the weekend.
The results left Glenbrook South with 37 total points, good for fourth best in Illinois.
St. Viator's doubles team of Dean Tanglis and Taylor Blaney went 4-2 before bowing out in the sixth round of the consolation bracket.
Tanglis and Blaney won their first two matches before dropping into the consolation bracket with a loss to a Hinsdale Central duo.
But the Lions bounced back for two more wins over Teutopolis and Edwardsville before bowing out of the finals against a Highland Park team.
Both Palatine and Fremd's representatives finished the weekend at 3-2. Palatine's doubles team of Rafael Robles and Mikey Woolf earned two nice wins to start off the tournament.
They fell to a Downers Grove South duo in the third round and earned another win in the consolation bracket before losing their second game to Moline.
In singles play, Fremd's Kenta Shimizu followed the same path, winning his first two matches before tripping up in the third round to Stagg's Tim Kopinski. Shimizu responded with a win before losing a tight match with Batavia's Josh Cogan, 7-6 (5), 3-6, 6-2.
Niles West's Vova Zverkovskiy won his first match over De La Salle's Kris Powell before dropping his next two.
Hinsdale Central won the team title with 43 points, followed by Stevenson (42) and New Trier (40).
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