Singles play pushes Batavia past Geneva

In its long and storied history, Batavia's boys tennis program has never won four consecutive conference championships.

This year's Bulldogs are determined to change that.

Having won conference titles in 2012, 2013 and 2014, Batavia took its initial steps this week toward claiming its first-ever four-peat. After knocking off Elgin on Tuesday, the Bulldogs defeated border rival Geneva 5-2 on Thursday to stake out an early lead in the Upstate Eight Conference River Division race.

But coach Brad Nelson cautioned that his team has a long way to go to achieve its goal.

"We've talked about it," Nelson said. "But we also realize it's not going to be easy. We lost some key players from last year and are getting used to new doubles combinations and a largely new lineup. I know St. Charles East and North are in similar situations, but they have both have good talent back, so it will be a battle again this year. We need to take it one match at a time and win as many matches as we can to earn as many points as we can in the conference standings. We don't want to enter the conference tournament trailing North or East and have to overtake them in the tournament like we did last year. You can get away with that one year, but it's not something you want to have to do very often."

Batavia (7-3 overall, 2-0 UEC River) rode dominant singles play to Thursday's victory. The Bulldogs only lost a combined five games in the three singles matches. Seniors Adam Maris (6-0, 6-0 over Christian Fournier) at first singles and Josh Boyle (6-1, 6-0 over Mike Guffey) led the way, while freshman Will McClure (6-2, 6-2 over Will Youman) won his third straight match of the season.

Maris and Boyle have extra motivation this season. As members of Batavia's varsity team since they were freshmen, they could become the first two Bulldogs to ever play for four consecutive conference champion teams.

"I'd like to be able to say we're the first two players to win four straight championships," said Maris, who played third singles as a freshman and is 7-3 in his first season at first singles after advancing to the state meet in 2014 at first doubles with Ryan Sterling. "That would be a neat accomplishment."

Batavia and Geneva (1-1 UEC River) split the four doubles matches. Geneva's senior tandem of Brad Burgess and Nick Simone beat Batavia's James Carr and Emerson Hinzy 6-3, 7-6 (7-3) on Burgess' 18th birthday. Burgess and Simone are now 7-3 at first doubles after playing second doubles last season.

"We want to win conference and at least get down to state," Burgess said. "We played a lot of tennis in the off-season. Playing together (the last two seasons), we know each other's game well. We know where to hit the ball on the court and where to be at the net. We work well together."

Geneva's third doubles team of Canan Ciesielski and Mitch Adams survived an epic 6-4, 6-7 (7-9), 7-6 (7-5) duel with Batavia's Tommy Maren and Patrick Hanrahan. The Bulldogs took the other two doubles matches, with Andrew Nelson and Nick Robinson prevailing 6-2, 6-4 over Adam Said and Seth Dickinson at second doubles and seniors Gunnar Malm and Kevin Fiddelke defeating Geneva's Jake Stellick and Mark Lamb 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 at fourth doubles.

Nelson and Robinson overcame a 4-1 deficit to win the second set and the match and improve their season record to 7-2. The junior duo is a new doubles team for Batavia, but each is a varsity veteran, having played for the Bulldogs since they were freshmen.

"We know each other well," Nelson said. "We are 1 and 2 on the golf team, so we play together a lot. We're excited about the season. We want to win conference at second doubles and hit 20 wins as a doubles team."

"Our skills go well together," Robinson said. "We're both solid with our groundstrokes on the baseline, and Andrew's a very good server, and I can get volleys at the net off his serves."

Despite the loss, Vikings coach Zach Evans saw a number of good signs from his team while facing the perennial Upstate Eight River champs.

"I thought we played pretty well as a whole," Evans said. "We let down in a couple of spots, but our four doubles played as well as they have all season, and one doubles played really well. They were able to pull out the win after Batavia came back after the first set, and third doubles gutted out a nice win, too."

The Vikings next compete in the St. Charles East Invitational on Saturday, while Batavia plays in a quadrangular meet at Glenbard South with St. Francis and Glenbard East before embarking on a busy week of dual meets against Marmion, Wheaton Academy and St. Charles North next week.