Waubonsie Valley sweeps Metea Valley
Despite the rest of the matches being finished and the victory firmly in the hands of Waubonsie Valley, Tuesday’s No. 1 doubles match against Metea Valley went on for hours like a street fight.
Fueled by familiarity and competitiveness, Waubonsie Valley pulled out the final doubles match for a 7-0 sweep of Tuesday in Aurora.
The Waubonsie Valley (4-0) duo of Max Botbol and Mike Cioffi outlasted Metea’s Bill Finnerty and Nick Ohl 6-7 (3), 6-4, 7-6 (2) in a grueling three hours and 38 minutes.
“It was a long match and we started getting tired towards the end of the third set, but we stayed aggressive and pulled through,” Botbol said. “We had a long first set with the tiebreaker, then another tiebreaker in the third set and it really was back and forth with the momentum the whole match.”
“We tried to use our teamwork with the big serves when we needed it, then close them off at the net,” Cioffi said.
For Metea Valley (2-2) it was a measure of a budding rivalry.
“Everyone on our team has been coached by coach Gallow and Max was my doubles partner freshman year,” Ohl said. “It’s a rivalry.”
“It’s a grudge match and it’s really competitive,” Finnerty said. “We started off all right, then we lost a close one in the second set, and we got close in the tiebreaker, but it’s early in the season and we have plenty of time.”
The two former Warriors came the closest to pulling out a win for the Mustangs but were swept nonetheless.
“We’re trying to figure out what our lineup should be,” Metea Valley coach Will White said. “Our No. 1 doubles team did really good. They’ve been serving big and their communication is excellent and they’ve been really aggressive overall.”
In other action the No. 1 singles play was dominated by the Warriors’ Abhi Singh, as he cruised in straight sets over Metea’s Righab Shafima 6-0, 6-0.
The No. 2 doubles play was also won convincingly, as the Warriors’ Zach Nygren and Patrick Zhao beat the Mustangs’ George Len and Rishi Sriram 6-2, 6-2 to earn Waubonsie Valley’s first doubles win of the day.
“It seems we get uptight sometimes when we play, but today we calmed down and took everything a little slower and we played well,” Zhao said. “We have three matches coming up in a row and it’s nice to have momentum heading into tomorrow, and a 7-0 win is amazing.”
“We just tried to play our game; serve and volley and get it to the net as quick as we can, then put our shots away,” Nygren said. “Nothing fancy.”