Boys tennis: Hersey’s headed to state with momentum after impressive sectional showing

One second — give or take a nanosecond — into the preseason, Hersey boys tennis coach Andy Walton knew exactly what mattered to his Huskies.

Nothing but the team.

“It has been their focus from the very beginning,” a heartened Walton said after his talent-laden squad won Saturday’s Class 2A sectional title on the home courts with a point total of 34 in sunny, steamy Arlington Heights.

Runner-up Fremd scored 24 points.

All four of Hersey’s entrants — two singles players and a pair of doubles teams — qualified for next weekend’s state tournament at Palatine. Huskies senior Mitch Sheldon won the singles championship by injury default over Fremd senior and reigning 2A state singles champ Andrew Spurck, and Hersey’s duo of Jakub “Kuba” Pasielak/Matthew Sikorski edged Fremd’s Shashwat Srivatsa/Amaye Shyani 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 in the doubles final.

Huskies senior Brent Chen added a third-place, state-qualifying showing in singles, while Hersey’s Ben Werling/Andrew Weber bronzed in doubles.

Walton paired the shades-wearing combo of Pasielak/Sikorski only a few weeks ago. They raced to a 4-1 lead in the final’s third set Saturday and capped the victory in the ninth game right after losing an eight-deuce game.

“We were aggressive and stayed upbeat,” said Pasielak, whose athleticism and reflex volleys ended points abruptly.

Sikorski’s steady, deep serves highlighted the clinching game.

An undaunted Chen nearly stunned the Xavier (Ohio)-bound Spurck — a doubles player for most of the spring — in a taut and highly entertaining singles semifinal Saturday morning. Many of the points in the two-and-a-half-hour battle turned into slugfests to the delight of the spectators.

Spurck, a shot-making wizard, saved his biggest serves for the latter part of the third set and survived 6-2, 3-6, 6-3.

But the match took its toll on the Viking, who suffered a leg cramp and defaulted before the scheduled start of the final.

“Andrew plays a grueling brand of tennis,” Fremd coach Johnny Kent said. “I trust my student-athlete. Andrew knows his body better than I do, and he felt it wasn’t ready to compete at the time of the final.”

Sheldon, who’s amped to strike clean winners for Michigan State next year, would have loved to tune up for state by facing Spurck for the sixth time in his career. But he wasn’t terribly disappointed after learning he’d get to watch his colleagues compete in the doubles final and third-place matches.

“We’re sectional team champions,” Sheldon said.

The sectional’s other state qualifiers were Streamwood freshman Mathieu Veltkamp (fourth place, singles) and Prospect’s David Motorga/Dimitriy Hutnyk (fourth place, doubles).

Prospect placed third in the team standings with 18 points, followed by Palatine (10), Streamwood (8), Buffalo Grove (4) and Rolling Meadows (4).

The 2A and 1A state tournaments run May 23-25 at host Palatine and many other sites.

At 2A Jacobs: Team champion Barrington netted the maximum team points in Algonquin, taking the top two spots in singles and doubles. Broncos sophomore Hadi Dossani defeated freshman teammate Will Delach 4-6, 6-1, 6-3 in the singles final, while Nolan Pearson/Sohan Yousfi downed Ali Kanji/Aarav Nambiar 6-3, 6-2 in the doubles championship.

“Hadi had a great tournament and saved his best tennis for the final,” Broncos coach John Roncone said. “Nolan and Sohan were better at the net, and they never really let their teammates into the match.”

At 2A Stevenson: Freshman and reigning NSC No. 1 singles champion Nikhil Vijayakumar defeated Warren’s Brandon Paasch 6-3, ret., in the singles final. Libertyville freshman Chase Peirce (fourth place, singles) also advanced to state.

At 2A Maine South: Conant freshmen Kabir Motwani and Maximus Rysz finished 2-3 in singles to qualify for state.

At 1A Lakes: Grayslake Central’s Samay Patel took first place in singles, and team champion Carmel was paced by the doubles runner-up, Evan Villinski/Louis Vu. Grayslake North’s Chris George/Vincent Marino (third place, doubles); Antioch’s Anton Augusto/Ben Thomson (fourth place, doubles); and Wauconda’s Sean Lenhart (third place, singles) and Marshawn Gallego (fourth place, singles) also left Lake Villa as state qualifiers.