Boys tennis: Glenbard West freshman Creswell claims singles title at Hilltopper invite

Glenbard West freshman Jack Creswell had a group of fans on hand Saturday afternoon to watch him perform at the Hilltoppers tennis invitational.

One of them was a four-legged friend, his dog Tango.

“My sister brought him over,” Creswell said. “He’s just super-energy.”

And is Tango a tennis fan? It sure seemed that way, considering intently he was focused on the singles championship match, where Creswell faced off against Glenbard East senior Finn Talbot for the title.

Tango seemed to react with a tail wag on every point, especially when Creswell hit a winner. And there were a lot of those early, when the freshman powered his way to a 5-0 lead in the first set.

Creswell wound up winning the title, but not in the way he expected. After Talbot had rallied to close within 5-4, he suffered a quad injury and went down in pain.

After about 20 minutes of treatment and exercises given by the trainer, it was determined that Talbot couldn’t continue.

That gave the crown to Creswell.

“That’s unfortunate, it’s never a fun thing,” said Creswell of Talbot’s injury. “I feel bad for my opponent, but it’s nice to win, get the win for my coach.”

And the Glenbard West coach, Tad Keely, said that his star frosh is handling his success, along with his studies in school, very well indeed.

“I’m most excited,” said Keely, “that he’s a really good athlete, not just a tennis player. He plays basketball as well.

“Coming from a multisport background myself, I think that’s huge for him. He doesn’t always have to focus on tennis, he has other stuff going on. He’s a competitor, one of the most competitive freshmen I’ve ever had as far as wanting to win.”

Creswell said he got off to a great start in the title match, and that was important.

“I got my rhythm down and started executing,” he said. “You just always have to be ready to reset and go on to the next point. When he (Talbot) got within 5-4, I was ready to execute in the next game and get it to six.”

Edwardsville won the team crown with 27 points. Glenbard West was next with 18 points, while Downers Grove South finished third at 12.

The DGS duo of Koko Dimitrakakos and Ryan Roumenov took home second place in No. 1 doubles.

For Glenbard East’s Talbot, it was a bittersweet end to his final Hilltopper invite. After graduation, he’ll be moving on to Ohio State, where he’ll study engineering and music. He’s a cello player.

After retiring due to the injury, the senior said he was disappointed he wasn’t able to continue the match and execute his game plan, which saw him rally in set one.

“My plan was to conserve energy at the start of the match because I was really tired from my last match (a 3-set win over Jake Brinker of Edwardswille),” Talbot said. “Just wanted to ease my way into it.”

When all was said and done, Glenbard West coach Keely gave kudos to not only his freshman athlete, but also the competition.

“He (Creswell) came out on fire, but all the credit to Finn, who was down 5-0 and came back to make it 5-4.

“Jack is doing very well. He knew a little bit about our program coming in, what to expect. We’ve got a good group.”