Fremd serves notice: Times have changed
Since the beginning of time, it seems, the Barrington-Fremd dual in the final week of the boys tennis season to decide the Mid-Suburban West title has been decided on the very last match between these fierce rivals.
Times, though, are changing.
It was all Fremd on Tuesday afternoon on a gloomy rainy day in Barrington as the Vikings took 3 of 4 flights at doubles and another two at Nos. 2 and 3 singles, before rain shut things down for good between top players Matt Burkhardt and Varun Parekh. The visitors already led 5-1, more than enough for Fremd to claims the divisional crown for a third consecutive year.
The Burkhardt-Parekh match will be completed today at 4 p.m. today on the Broncos’ courts.
“This is a nice win for us today, and as it has happened nearly all season for us, it has been our depth, especially at doubles, which helped get us past Barrington today,” said Vikings first-year coach Matt Duncan. “John (Roncone, Barrington’s coach) told me afterward that we were the better team today, and it was really nice of him to say that. But the fact is, there were matches at Nos. 2 and 3 dubs which could have gone either way after both split sets. Fortunately for us, they ended up going our way as our guys battled back to win those matches for their team.”
“Matt has a very strong team, up and down, and today, when his guys needed to, they showed they could win the big points to close things out,” said Roncone, who watched his No. 1 doubles team of Ben Nuckles-George Coll (9-7) earns the Broncos’ only win.
Fremd’s Nick Makowiecki (7-0) and Maciej Niemczyk, partners on the weekend at No. 1 doubles for Duncan, were both victorious with straight-set results. Makowiecki, a junior, defeated Akash Khurana 6-3, 6-2 to give the Vikings a 1-0 lead early on.
“Akash was a very good opponent who battled hard all throughout the match, but I thought I served and returned really well against him, and that was probably the difference in our match,” said Makowiecki.
Niemczyk (6-1, 7-5) fought off a gritty effort from Rishi Chatterji, who did his best to get back even with the Vikings’ sophomore. Niemczyk won the first set easily, but Chatterji fell short despite closing to 6-5 in the second set.
The Broncos’ No. 2 team of Ben Adams and Greg Adams, coming off of their consolation championship at the Pitchford 32, appeared to be still riding the wave of momentum from last weekend and delivered a 6-0 first-set victory. But the Vikings’ pair of Jamie Yang-Matt Buesing (7-0) roared back to win the next two sets (6-1, 6-3) to fuel a trio of victories at doubles for the Vikings.
Eric Pohl-Sudheer Vundru (7-0) kept their record perfect at No. 3 with a 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 triumph over Joe Schmidt and Alex Fletcher. Kevin Piotrowski and Andre Vlasov made it three wins in a row when they defeated Chris Song-Mike Lillien 6-3, 6-2.
“It’s great when you can count on the guys on the bottom half of your lineup each and every time they go out there,” said Duncan.
Nuckles and Coll, who stunned 3-4 seed Oak Park-River Forest (Devon Jones-Luke Trinka) in the second round of the 32 last Friday afternoon, held serve to go up 5-3 with Nuckles serving in the first set, then closed out Erik Rosencrans and Joe Cantieri when Coll held service. The Broncos tandem wrapped up the match after Coll held once again to seal a 6-2 win, and likely the No. 1 seed next week at the MSL tournament, which begins on Thursday at Buffalo Grove.
“It was nice to win today, but disappointing to fall short on the day overall,” said Nuckles. “We have a lot of talent on this team, but we’ve had trouble, me included, on finishing points, and winning games that we should win. We’ve got a week of practice to clean things up — then hopefully make a run at Fremd and a tournament championship.”