St. Charles North Stars start fast at state
At one point Thursday morning, when the boys state tennis tournament was still in the early rounds, St. Charles North was at the top of the team standings.
That was partially a result of which of the tournament's sites was reporting its finals the fastest, but it was also a reflection of the sort of day the North Stars were having.
St. Charles North won three of its four opening round matches, and both of its doubles teams as well as its two singles players came away with wins on the day.
"We're feeling pretty good about the way that we played today," St. Charles North coach Tim Matacio said.
The doubles team of David Johnson and John Mittvick swept their first two matches, losing only a single game in each.
"They played really well the whole day," Matacio said. "In both of the matches that they won, they had control of the net and overwhelmed their opponents."
Johnson and Mittvick ran into trouble in their third round match against Stevenson's Ross Putterman and David Packowitz, and dropped that one, 6-2, 6-2. They will be on the court Friday morning for a fourth-round match against Glenwood's Charlie Clausner and Anand Puthanpurayil.
Felix Nitzsche, the North Stars' top singles player, won his opener against DeKalb's Rafael Ramalho, 6-3, 6-1, dropped his second round match, but bounced back to beat Jeremy Milan of Pekin, 6-2, 6-3.
Nitzsche took on a familiar opponent in his final match of the day, Streamwood's Yuto Tsukida, and though the North Star senior won the first set, 6-4, he dropped the next two and bowed out of the tournament.
Christian Hoskey came back after a first-round loss to Kevin Baumann of Naperville Central and won his second round match against Blake Hollenbeck of Belleville West, 6-0, 7-5.
"That was one of my favorite matches of the day," Matacio said. "That win was huge for him."
Nikhil Mehta and Dan Oakes made fast work of Ottawa's Aaron Guenther and Eric Farrell in their first round match, before dropping their next two.
The North Stars finished the first day of competition with 10 points.
Freshman Josh Cogan was the only Batavia Bulldog to qualify for the state tournament, but he's already opened some eyes, and advanced to Friday's competition.
Cogan's day began with a 6-1, 6-2 win over Crystal Lake Central's Tommy Nelson.
"I was a little bit nervous at the beginning," Cogan said. "But eventually I settled in and just let it fly."
His second match proved more challenging than the final scores suggests. Max McLean of Belleville West tried to get at Cogan by changing up styles throughout the match. But Cogan adjusted at put McLean away, 6-2, 6-1.
That set up a match between Cogan and 5-8 seeded Andrew Scholnick of New Trier.
"That was a fun match because Andrew and I know each other really well," Cogan said.
After Scholnick won the first set, 6-3, Cogan turned in an impressive second set and won it 6-2, then won the first game of set three. But Scholnick broke Cogan's serve, and won the decisive set, 6-4.
"I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do tomorrow," Batavia coach Bob Kummer said. "If he plays hard and gets a little lucky, Josh could win some more matches."
Marmion's John Mason and Austin McWethy bowed out after dropping their first two matches, the second being a tight three-setter against Triad's Tom Rapp and Josh Lange that could have gone either way.