Girls tennis: West Aurora claims UEC Valley crown
It was essentially a second dual meet for West Aurora and Glenbard East at the Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division girls tennis championship on Saturday morning at South Elgin.
Of the seven singles and doubles titles on the line, the former DuPage Valley Conference rivals met six times in the championship bracket.
Glenbard East captured two-thirds of the head-to-head matches against its opponents from West Aurora.
But the Blackhawks ended up winning their first Upstate Eight Conference championship since their 1996 squad won the league title en route to the first of back-to-back state championships.
Both teams scored 38 points over the course of the two-day tournament, but West Aurora turned back the Rams 70-68 for the season-long title on the basis of its razor-thin 4-3 dual win in the regular season.
South Elgin was a distant third with 42 points, followed by Bartlett, West Chicago and East Aurora.
The swing match occurred at fourth doubles when the Blackhawks' Teryn Griffin and Jasmin Serna came back from a one-set deficit to defeat the Rams' Erin Heniff and Emma Chuatal 2-6, 6-2 and 6-4.
"We just started moving a lot more and started talking," Griffin said. "We motivated each other."
"It was a tough match, but (Griffin and Serna) stayed positive the whole time," West Aurora coach Erin Angelo said.
The Blackhawks' top-ranked doubles unit, juniors Taylor Truckenbrod and Caiti Gallagher, had few issues in storming to the first-doubles championship in straight sets over their Glenbard East foes.
"I just think we had a lot of momentum coming in (this weekend)," said Truckenbrod, who teamed with Gallagher after beginning the season as a singles competitor.
West Aurora senior Carly Frauenhoff added an Upstate Eight second singles crown to her resume to complement a DVC championship from two years ago.
South Elgin freshman Bri Barconi was the lone member of the host Storm to make the finals, but it was all Frauenhoff as she improved to 23-3 on the season with the 6-2, 6-3 win.
"I was making sure that (Barconi) was getting frustrated every time I hit balls at her," Frauenhoff said. "She couldn't get my second serve."
"(Frauenhoff) just played better than me," Barconi said.
Kolie Allen, however, extended her season-long winning streak to 18 matches by dropping a mere game in her two matches.
The Rams' sophomore standout dispatched the Blackhawks' Elizabeth Stefancic to give Glenbard East the first of its four divisional champions.
"I am just focusing on playing my game, hitting the ball like I usually do and not letting my nerves get the best of me," Allen said after defending her No. 1 singles title. "I was serving really well, and backhand winners were coming easy to me."
"(Allen) is the best player I have ever coached," veteran Glenbard East coach Bill Burt said.
The Rams' doubles tandems of Elizabeth Meimers-Shreya Sharma and Abby Hoh-Alex Vargas bettered their West Aurora finalists; junior Kyah Muntz did the same at third singles for the Rams' against West Aurora junior Marisa Silva.
"It's a little less tough to lose to some as classy as coach Angelo," Burt said of his former student and player. "We needed to have someone do a little bit better than their seed."
Gaby Pasillas paced West Chicago with her third-place finish at second singles.