Doubles drive St. Charles East to sectional crown

St. Charles East boys tennis coach Rob Livermore didn't care who won the doubles finals at the St. Charles East sectional on Saturday.

No, Livermore hadn't lost his competitive spirit. It was because his Saints' two sectional doubles entries had both reached the championship match.

Making the doubles title tilt even more enjoyable to Livermore and the Saints was knowing that, regardless of whether Connor Anderson and Alex Winters or Nick Hauptmann and Kevin Schreiner prevailed, St. Charles East had already secured the sectional team championship.

Semifinal victories by Anderson-Winters and Schreiner-Hauptmann gave the host Saints the team crown with 24 points. St. Charles North, which was tied with East with 18 points apiece through Friday's quarterfinals, took second place with 20 points, and Lake Park finished third with 18 points.

Wheaton Academy (14) placed fourth thanks in large part to freshman Ty Krill capturing his first sectional singles championship, and Wheaton North (12) was fifth.

St. Charles East's coaches and players were all smiles after winning the sectional title a week after falling short of St. Charles North in the Upstate Eight Conference River tournament.

"After conference, where we got third, we felt (the sectional) was a fresh start for us," Livermore said. "We had big-picture goals for the sectional, but the approach was to take it one match at a time. It paid big dividends for us."

The Saints grabbed the sectional team lead for good in the doubles semifinals. After defeating Wheaton North's third-seeded team in the quarterfinals to earn a spot in next week's state meet, Hauptmann and Schreiner, the sectional's sixth seed, advanced to the finals and earned two key points for East with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over second-seeded Matt Ernst and Luke Dunteman of St. Charles North.

Winters and Anderson tacked on two more points for St. Charles East with a 7-5, 6-3 semifinal win over Lake Park seniors Frankie Fanella and Keanu Reyes.

Winters and Anderson capped St. Charles East's scoring by beating Schreiner and Hauptmann 7-5, 6-0 in the finals, but Anderson said the Saints were prouder of their team championship and especially Hauptmann and Schreiner's gutsy run to a state berth and the title match than Winters and Anderson's doubles crown.

Hauptmann and Schreiner primarily played singles this season, going 6-2 together in limited action at doubles before the sectional.

"That made my season more than anything," Anderson said. "I was so happy to see them qualify for state. I'm so proud of them."

Seniors Anderson and Hauptmann and the freshman Schreiner are all first-time state qualifiers, while Winters is a repeat qualifier to the state meet, which begins Thursday and ends next Saturday in and around Arlington Heights.

St. Charles North, which captured the St. Charles East sectional title in 2014, still had plenty to show for its efforts this weekend, advancing singles players Aaron Amburgey and Matt Kramer and the doubles team of Dunteman and Ernst to state.

Dunteman and Ernst finished in fourth place after Fanella and Reyes prevailed 6-2, 6-3 in the third-place match.

Piotr Lada will join Reyes and Fanella at state after grabbing third place in singles with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Kramer. Lada also went to state last season. The top four sectional finishers at doubles and singles won tickets to state.

After beating Lada in the semifinals, Amburgey gave the top-seeded Krill all he could handle before Krill delivered a 6-4, 7-6 (7-4) victory in the finals. The North Stars senior and Upstate Eight River first singles champion led 3-2 in the first set before Krill held serve, then broke Amburgey's serve en route to winning the set.

Amburgey jumped ahead 5-4 in the second set before Krill regained the lead 6-5. Amburgey, who advanced to state in doubles last season, promptly broke Krill's serve to even it at 6-6. But in the tiebreaker, Krill turned a 4-4 deadlock into a 7-4 win that clinched the match behind a service break followed by two service points.

"He has a really big serve," the 5-foot-9 Amburgey said of the 6-foot-5 Krill, whose serve sometimes registers over 120 mph. "He's big and covers a lot of court. He handles high balls well, too. I was trying to take advantage of his unforced errors and work hard to keep points alive and sometimes take advantage of the net because I played doubles for three years, so I'm pretty good at the net."

Krill's championship performance improved his season record to 23-1. The Metro Suburban Conference first singles champion has won all 23 matches in straight sets. His lone loss came in a third-set super-tiebreaker in the finals of the Naper Valley Invitational in April.

Getting tested by Amburgey will only help the Geneva resident as he heads to his first state meet next week.

"I will face some really tough competition at state," said Krill, a veteran of the United States Tennis Association circuit. "I want to get seeded and play up to my seed there."

"I'm proud of how Ty stuck with it today," Wheaton Academy coach Chris Jones said. "I give the kid from St. Charles North a lot of credit. Aaron didn't quit. He was able to extend some rallies that a lot of players aren't able to do against Ty. Ty had some unforced errors, but he hung in there and made some big shots when it counted."