A singular victory for Huskies
Naperville North needed only one singles players to step up with a victory and, as she often does, Surbhi Agarwal came through.
The junior second-singles player produced the Huskies' only singles triumph, but combined with wins in all three doubles matches, Naperville North prevailed 4-3 over visiting Glenbard East in the final DuPage Valley Conference regular-season match on Monday.
"Both last year and this year Surbhi gets determination and steps up in the tough matches," said Naperville North coach Heather Henricksen. "When the opponent gets their momentum going and the match gets tight, she gets more focus."
In the only three-set match in the meet, Agarwal started strong with a 6-2 win over the Rams' Megan Wachholz. But the Glenbard East freshman turned the tables in the second set winning 6-0.
"Sometimes I lose a little focus when I win the first set," said Agarwal. "And the opponent comes back and surprises me. That motivated me in the third set. I was down on myself and knew I had to get every shot back."
She broke Wachholz's serve twice in the deciding set on the way to a 6-3 win.
Agarwal closes the campaign with a 6-1 conference ledger and a good chance at the No. 2 seed for this year's DVC tournament.
"Surbhi's a consistent player, but sometimes she tries to go for too much," said Henricksen. "What she needs to do in that case is to get control, get a rhythm going and set up her points. She did that today."
"Agarwal is an experienced player who kept her poise under pressure and made good decisions, "said Glenbard East coach Bill Burt. "Megan played better than a freshman today. If she plays that kind of tennis throughout her career, we'll be just fine."
The other Glenbard East singles players, Brittany Wingard, Hannah Geoffrey and Manuela Tchobalieva, all won by identical 6-0, 6-4 scores.
Geoffrey finishes the conference schedule with a 7-0 record at third singles.
"She has been a huge points-producer for us all season," said Burt. "The singles players have been the strength of our lineup. They're very close in ability."
All three Huskies doubles teams looked strong in victory.
Cleo Stephanides and Deepthi Ramachandran won handily (6-1, 6-0) at first-doubles, while Katie Schneberg and Gina Castagnoli (6-2, 6-3) and Jen Mohideen and Alicia Oken (6-2, 6-1) were impressive in the Nos. 2 and 3 spots.
"We've been challenged at doubles because we had a lot of inexperience," said Henricksen. "But the girls have worked hard and today they did a great job of stepping up today and taking the pressure off the singles players."
The Huskies finished the regular season 11-10 overall and 5-2 record in conference, while the Rams' record is 10-6 overall and 2-5 in the DVC.