Naperville Central doubles outlast Naperville North

There may be some bumps in the road but everything is just purring along for Naperville Central's first two doubles teams, four seniors who are paired up for the first time this year.

On Thursday both duos, Kevin Bauman and Billy Sterrett at No. 1 and Mark Bicek and Neel Kunjur at No. 2, were pushed to three sets before recording victories that helped the Redhawks (11-1, 4-0) gain sole possession of first place in the DuPage Valley Conference with a 5-2 win at Naperville North (8-3, 3-1).

Four of the seven flights went to three sets as the two evenly matched teams battled it out, and the Redhawks took three of them.

"Every time we come to the North it comes down to the wire," Kunjur said. "It's just a good feeling to come out with the win. It's a huge deal."

"Winning this meet at North is big," Bauman said. "We lost to them in the DVC tournament the past two years. This win can have a bearing on the conference title."

At this point in the season, Redhawks coach Dan Brown's decision to form the duos of Bauman and Sterrett and Bicek and Kunjur looks like a success.

Last year Sterrett qualified for state with another partner, since graduated, while Bauman made the state tournament as a singles player.

"Kevin and Billy have been playing together for the past seven months," Brown said. "They have good chemistry and each knows what the other can do. When they got down today by losing the first set, they didn't lose their cool. They're experienced enough to make adjustments mid-match."

Bicek, who qualified for state with his older brother Frank, who graduated, is happy with the partnership with Kunjur.

"Neel doesn't yell at me," Bicek said. "He helps me through rough patches and doesn't get on my case the way Frank did. I'm playing more relaxed."

"Today it came down to the serve," Kunjur said. "When we held our serve we were able to come through. It was really tough with the wind. After losing the second set, we wanted to focus on serves and having positive energy going into the third set."

The Redhawks swept the doubles matches as Brian Chiou and Gautham Bala won third doubles 6-3, 6-1.

Freshman third-singles Danny Albert fought back from a first-set loss to defeat Marc Deetjen 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 and Mike Mihailescu won 6-3, 6-2 at fourth singles.

The first two singles matches went to Gordon Zhang and Aniket Patil of Naperville North.

Huskies coach Heather Henricksen was pleased that Patil could pull out his three-set match at second singles, 2-6, 7-5, 6-3 to make the final score 5-2.

"Tonight he kept us in the running for the conference tournament," Henricksen said. "We can make up 5-2, but 6-1 would have been hard."

Henricksen wasn't surprised with how close the meet was and that it took a 3-1 advantage in the three-set matches to give the Redhawks the victory.

"I was really impressed with Naperville Central," Henricksen said. "They came out to win. You could see their energy level on the court and the composure they had."

"I'm proud of our guys," Brown said. "We knew it was going to be close at every position. All the kids stayed focused and played strong. There was a lot of great tennis out there by both teams, and it wasn't an ideal day because of the wind."