Glenbard East doubles cause Montini trouble

A quick sweep in doubles set the tone for the Glenbard East boys tennis team, and two grind-out singles matches earned the Rams a 5-0 home victory over the Montini Broncos on Wednesday.

The Rams' experienced doubles sides swept the Broncos before the No. 1 singles match had even gotten done with its first set and the No. 2 singles match had barely started its second.

The Rams were led in doubles by seniors Brandon Nasti and Kevin Osburn who took the No. 1 match 6-0, 6-0 over Montini's Grant Brady and Dave Harte.

"They played the kind of tennis that disregards who's on the other side of the net and that's what we hope they'll do," said Rams coach Bill Burt. "They said this is how they play and they hit the kind of shots that are going to be competitive regardless of who they are playing."

Glenbard East returned the No. 1 doubles pairing and the No. 2 made up of Shamlee Pascual and Errol Kaylor as well as its No. 3 pairing of juniors Andrew Roth and Sam Fragoso.

With the doubles matches done so quickly the attention turned to the very competitive singles matches.

In the No. 2 singles match Glenbard East sophomore Krystian Nawloka took the first set 6-1, but Montini's Brian Kowopacz came out in the second to take a 5-2 lead. From then Nawloka battled back to take five straight points, earning the 7-5 victory.

"A lot of my shots that I normally hit weren't going in so I tried just to do my best to keep it simple and came out with a nice win," Nawloka said.

"It gives me a lot of (confidence) knowing that I can come back from that kind of deficit and make a nice comeback."

Wrapping up the day was the No. 1 singles match between Montini's Mike Gowin and Glenbard East's Jack Alesia. Though Alesia took the match 6-2, 6-2, the score didn't reflect how even the match was.

Montini coach Denniz Kozelsky said Gowin's lack of offseason tennis could come to cost him down the stretch.

"He's our best player and the problem is he basically still only plays within season so March, April he comes out and you don't get a whole lot of training other than that," Kozelsky said. "It makes it hard when you're playing these kids who are playing through the winter and indoors."