BG's Schwartz bumps Bloom
With blasts of gale-force winds welcoming some of the best boys tennis players in the state to the Pitchford 32 tournament, perhaps the strongest gust of all swept one of the top-seeded singles players out of the championship round Friday afternoon.
No. 2 seed Augie Bloom of Hinsdale Central was ousted in straight sets by Buffalo Grove senior Jonah Schwartz near the end of the first day of play at this mega-tournament before rain came in around 5:45 p.m. to halt competition at all five sites.
Weather permitting, play will resume this morning at 8 a.m. today with tourney host Hersey preparing to welcome all championship round survivors at Nos. 1 and 2 singles, as well as the same at Nos. 1 and 2 doubles.
In the team race, Stevenson holds a slim edge over three teams as the Patriots, with all four teams still alive helping coach Mark Linnenburger's club garner 32 points overall, 4 points ahead of Hinsdale Central, New Trier and Oak Park-River Forest.
Warren and top seed Denis Bogatov is tied with Highland Park with 20 points in sixth place, while Buffalo Grove, behind Schwartz' second-round stunner, finds itself tied with seven others for ninth place overall.
"I think part of Jonah's motivation today against Augie was the fact that he believed he was deserving of a higher seed than his 9-16," said Bison coach Kevin Schrammel.
Schwartz, who smiled when asked about Schrammel's suggestion, figured his ability to slow down the pace of his match and ability to manage the wind led to his first-set tiebreaker win and 6-4 victory in the second set.
"Augie was able to dictate the (pace) early on, and I knew it was important to take him out of his game," said Schwartz, who needed a little over two hours to prevail.
"I did everything I could to slow him down, and to get back into my game."
Schwartz is awaiting his next opponent, as the match between Matt Goralka (Payton) and 5-8 seed Drew Feder of Belleville East was suspended due to rain.
A quick look at the rest of the bracket at No. 1 singles finds Bogatov ready to meet Chase Klaus following his 6-2, 6-2 defeat of power-hitting Tyler Hoffman of Naperville Central.
Blake Bazarnik of Stevenson, who could meet Bogatov in the quarterfinals today, defeated upstart Ben Mirkin (New Trier) in straight sets despite falling behind 4-1 in his second set.
Bazarnik's teammate Chris Speer breeezed through his only 2 matches of the day at No. 2 singles as the top seed will now wait for his next opponent, the winner of the James Strathis (Belleville West) vs. David Zak (Highland Park) match.
In doubles play at Buffalo Grove, the top seed from New Trier (Jones-Stineman) survived against Barrington (Matt Barns-Andrew Nemz) 6-1, 6-3 in a match that saw the Broncos play well, but not well enough to finish out points.
The No. 2 seed from Rockford Guilford (Shepardson-Park) won easily in its two matches and will face Lyons (Robare-Kenaga), while the 3-4 seed from Stevenson (David Packowitz-Ross Putterman) needed little time to dispatch both of its opponents.
Next up for the freshman duo is the winner of the Latin-Glenbard North match.
The Patriots' No. 2 team of Allan Pukshansky and Nick Stephan cruised in both of its matches, and they will now face Hinsdale Central.
Warren's No. 1 tandem, Konrad Siczek and Igor Federov, survived a scare in its first-round match with Fremd (Owen Marsden-Ryan Kreis) 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, but were unable to live through another in the second round.
The Blue Devils duo fell to a 3-4 seed from Oak Park-River Forest (Jones-Martin) 4-6, 6-4, 6-0.
"(Fremd) stayed back and mixed things really good and gave us a very good match," said Siczek.
"We gave (Warren) chances in that second set to allow them to get back into the match," said Marsden, "and you cannot do that against a really good team."