Barrington’s Coll-Parekh exit after standout season
After a cameo in the round of 16 at the state tennis tournament, the Barrington team of George Coll and Varun Parekh bid farewell to its doubles opponents in the championship bracket.
One round later, the Broncos standout duo fell in three sets to Bloomington’s Ricky Zamudio-Nathan Cavanaugh at Buffalo Grove late Friday afternoon, ending their tournament run.
The straight-set loss finished a marvelous postseason which included a Mid-Suburban League title, a second-place finish at the Schaumburg sectional and a 3-2 state tournament record following a 6-1, 4-6, 4-6 defeat to the Bloomington tandem.
“It was a good run, but obviously we would have liked to go further,” said Coll, a senior who is off to Purdue next fall.
Coll wraps up a career in which he was a four-time state qualifier, including his first two appearances at singles for coach John Roncone.
“The guys had a great tournament and battled their way through each match today, especially in our first match of the day with New Trier when we made a real strong push in the second set and fought them hard, making them earn every point,” said Roncone.
In their morning round of 16 match, the Broncos (20-9) took No. 3-4 seed Alex Mang-Arthur Ozga of New Trier into a second set tiebreaker by playing some of their best tennis of the postseason. Coll/Parekh came back from a 4-3 deficit to draw even at 6-6 and force a tiebreaker. They made another late charge before back-to-back stinging serves from Ozga finally put away the Broncos duo.
“George and Varun made (New Trier) play for their points,” Roncone. “We were hitting our volleys and giving in at all in that second set, and if not for (Ozga) hitting two huge serves — who knows? Maybe we force a third set and anything can happen after that.”
“It was great fun playing with George this season,” said Parekh, “and things really worked out well for us and the team because coach was able to move us into the No. 1 spot to allow some of our younger, talented singles players to handle the role of No. 1 and 2 singles for us. Next year looks bright for us, and I look forward to coming back for my final season.”
The New Trier victory proved to a key one for the reigning state champs, who will begin the day Saturday 6 points behind team leader Hinsdale Central (40 points). The Red Devils, despite losing the No. 2 seed in the tournament, Sam Bloom, to an upset in the quarterfinals to Jeremy Bush of Stevenson, will still have one more team playing than the Trevians.
Late in the day on Friday, the Trevs’ No. 2 doubles team of David Laser-Nate Jacobsen were knocked out of the tournament by the Stevenson duo of Andrew Komarov and Colin Harvey in straight sets.
No. 1 seed Jason Brown (31-4) of Deerfield is still the headline act, and will take his show into today’s 9 a.m. semifinals at Hersey against 3-4 Martin Joyce from Hinsdale Central.
Both doubles teams from Fremd were sent home after straight-set defeats at two area venues.
The Vikings duo of Matt Buesing-Mike Artov fell 6-2, 6-1 to Chicago Latin, and Fremd’s Eric Pohl and Sudheer Vundru were eliminated by Waubonsie Valley’s Deep Chatterjee and Abhi Singh.
Schaumburg freshman Vincent Lin (23-2) saw his season end abruptly in the fifth round of the back-draw when New Trier senior Rob Jacobson recorded a 6-2, 6-3 victory at Wheeling.
In his consolation opener, Lin, the MSL and sectional champ in his freshman season, defeat Libertyville’s Ben VanDixhorn of Libertyville 6-1, 6-3.
Andrew Norasith (South Elgin) was unable to get to the 35-win plateua after a talented senior from Springfield, Patrick Gaffigan, ended his season with a 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 win in his fourth-round consolation match.
The Storm sophomore went 3-2 during his two days of play at singles.
Hamsphire senior Christian Dela Cruz also finished 3-2 as he to fell to New Trier senior Rob Jacobson (6-1, 6-1). After dropping his tournament opener to Mitchell Nguyen of Metamora on Friday morning, Dela Cruz reeled off three straight wins.
In addition to the upset at Hersey of Bloom of Hinsdale Central, another shocker came on the far side of the courts in Arlington Heights when another No. 2 seed, Highland Park (Zacko Brint-Danny Wynbrandt) were sent into the back draw by a 9-16 seed from Edwardsville, Justin Leskera-Cameron Randall, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4.
The Edwardsville pair will face Hinsdale Central’s Alex Hagermoser-Pete Heneghan; in the other semifinal, it will be Glenbrook South’s Michael Sellitto-Michael Levin against Mang and Ozga of New Trier.