Barrington pair quite a hit at Prospect-Hersey invitational

With marquee singles player Denis Bogatov of Warren a late scratch because of the flu, focus switched to the doubles competition Saturday afternoon at the Prospect-Hersey boys tennis invitational.

That's where the Barrington duo of David Martin and Cameron McClelland advanced into the finals against Oak Park-River Forest.

The Broncos came this close to the big trophy, until a third-set falloff led to a 5-7, 7-6 (3), 6-2 defeat against the Huskies' Alex Gebert and Jake Wilson.

Despite the loss, the Martin-McClelland team helped the Broncos produce 27 of their 35 points, good enough for third place in the team race - which saw Highland Park outlast Oak Park-River Forest 52-46 for the title.

Ever-improving Hersey, on the strength of yet another terrific performance by Eric Klawitter, finished fourth by edging Mid-Suburban League East Division rival Prospect 27-25.

Libertyville (19), Warren (13) and Bloomington (7) rounded out the eight-team field.

One of the day's best stories was Klawitter, who kept his 2009 record spotless at 9-0 after defeating Scott Mickel (Highland Park) 6-3, 6-1 to win the big prize at No. 2 singles.

"The biggest difference between last year and this year is my confidence and to play (the) points smart and to stay focused," said Klawitter, who opened with a straight-sets win over Bloomington's Derek Novacek before ousting Barrington freshman Greg Baker in two sets. "I think in that match with (Baker) I moved him around a lot and really work the points to cause him into unforced errors all throughout the match."

Hersey's Kevin Amarantos, who with Klawitter has provided first-year Huskies coach Brenna Ohlson with an impressive 1-2 singles punch, defeated Raman of Libertyville in three sets (3-6, 6-0, 6-4) in the third-place match at No. 1 singles.

The Broncos' No. 3 doubles team of Joe Gasior and Zach Kasiurak defeated OPRF 6-2, 0-6, 6-1 to give Barrington its second championship, the only other title not won by the top two teams.

Dartmouth-bound Mike Jacobs of OPRF took advantage of Bogatov's absence and swept through the field at No. 1 singles, defeating John Delanois (Bloomington), Anish Raman (Libertyville) and Danny Greenhill of Highland Park, all in straight sets to capture first-place honors.

"I was really looking forward to playing (Denis) but for today, anyway, it is all about helping my team a championship," said Jacobs, who enjoyed a deep run in the state tournament last season as a 9-16 seed before falling in two sets to Payton's Matt Goralka.

Long after Jacobs put away the gritty Greenhill (6-1, 6-4) in less than an hour, the Huskies' senior turned his attention to cheering for teammates Gebert and Wilson against Barrington.

The duo found themselves in deep trouble after the Broncos' Martin-McClelland won the first set and went up 4-3 in the second set after winning a marathon game which went to deuce seven times before a McClelland lob gave the Broncos the lead.

But the Huskies didn't go away easily, tying 5-5 before applying some extra pressure to break McClelland's serve and take a 6-5 lead.

The Broncos answered by breaking left-hander Gebert on serve, but they could not hold a 2-0 lead early in the tiebreaker and lost 7-3 to set up a third-set collapse.

"We got tired, fatigue set in, and we made far too many unforced errors, which (OPRF) took advantage," McClelland said. "They deserved to win this match."

"(The) momentum really turned in their favor after the tiebreaker, and that early break on (my) serve just about did us in," said Martin, who last season was a state qualifier at doubles with Greg Mulligan.

The Broncos had cruised into the final with a straight-sets victory over Warren's Nikola Trukov-Eric Seiler, then endured a long wait while the Huskies needed three sets to defeat Prospect's Jon Kiefer-Sam Pope.

The Prospect tandem later beat Trukov-Seiler 6-1, 6-3 in the third-place match.

"We let that match slip away," said Kiefer, after the Knights staved off 3 set points by the Huskies in the first set to get the win before losing a seesaw second set in a tiebreaker.

"Prospect was a very strong and athletic team, and one that we needed to do just about everything in order to get past them," said Huskies coach Joh Morlidge.

After posting a 10-3 record as Warren's new No. 1 doubles duo, Trukov and Seiler have struggled at times, particularly this past week leading up to their loss to Prospect.

"We started out at No. 3 last year, before moving up to No. 2 towards the end of the season, and it is a giant step for both of us to be No. 1 and playing so many top doubles teams in all of our tournaments," said Trukov, who along with fellow sophomore Seiler are filling the rather large shoes of last year's talented state qualifying team of Igor Fedorov and Konrad Siczek.