Napervie Central's Patel just plays 'in the moment'
"Trisha, just play in the moment."
That's what Naperville Central coach Don Bonet keeps reminding his fourth-singles player Trisha Patel, who has a tendency to get ahead of herself and overthink points.
On Tuesday, after starting slowly, Patel was down 5-1 in the first set, when she started to take her coach's advice and went on to win 10 straight games for a 7-5, 6-0 victory to give the Redhawks the deciding fourth point in the meet, and they went on to defeat visiting Wheaton North 5-2.
The result leaves both teams even with 3-2 records in the DuPage Valley Conference.
"It feels good that I learned from my mistakes and that I've even learned how to correct them," said Patel, a senior and first-year varsity player. "I'm actually quite ecstatic that I could help my team win."
In most matches this year Patel has started slowly and gotten better as the match wore on.
"Sometimes Trisha's tendency to overthink makes her put too much pressure on herself," Bonet said. "She can be her own worst enemy. If she could just go out and relax and play, she can be very solid. She has good strokes and does really well when she settles down. Today she was impressive. She came back and won 10 games in a row."
Once she got over that bad start, Patel was able to get her composure.
"This is a very mental game," Patel said. "So I kept myself mentally tough and played in the moment. I kept the ball in play, and mixed up the pace and started concentrating on hitting to my opponents backhand and hitting winners down the line to her forehand."
Patel said that she's also adjusting to the faster pace of the varsity game over the jayvee game she was used to.
"I'm meeting a whole new caliber of player," she said. "It's so much faster and more competitive. It's a great experience."
The Redhawks (11-5) won all four singles matches as well as first doubles.
Michelle Fern, Julia Champlin and Maria Mihailescu won in the first three singles matches, while Taylor Spence and Meghan Griffin teamed up for a victory at first-doubles.
Wheaton North second doubles Blythe Garma and Lauren Graham and third-doubles Kim Kunz and Maddie Sibon got the wins for the Falcons (12-4)
"Wheaton North and Naperville Central always meets with close matches like this," said Falcons coach Rick Rateike. "We just came out on the short end today. Those two doubles team have done a great job for us all year. We've been very competitive in doubles. The DVC is very wide open with six teams that have a lot of strong players."