A feel-good finish for Kummer, Batavia
Every once in a while, though not very often, a real life sports competition concludes with a Hollywood movie-style ending.
You know, the sort where everything happens in the most dramatic way possible at the very end despite the odds being against it.
That was the case Monday afternoon at the Upstate Eight Conference’s River Division tennis tournament in Batavia, as the Bulldogs rallied to pull off a surprise in the team standings, giving retiring coach Bob Kummer a going-away present he won’t ever forget.
“I’ve always coached to win, and I can tell you that championships are the greatest memories you can have as a player or coach,” Kummer said. “I am ecstatic, and every one of my players shares in this.”
Batavia entered the tournament trailing St. Charles North in total team points, 31 to 29, and tied with Geneva for second place. The Bulldogs knew coming in they had little to no margin for error. Despite dropping a couple of tough matches in the semifinals, they managed to win just enough of the key ones on Monday and finished with 60 points — 2 ahead of St. Charles North and St. Charles East, which wound up tied for second place.
“We struggled through a lot of matches this season, and when we got to the tournament I kept telling my players that we could control our destiny, we just had to play hard,” Kummer said. “I think somehow they finally believed me and believed in themselves.”
As it turned out, the decisive win came in the fifth-place match of the No.1 doubles bracket between Batavia’s Alek Mizikar and Tim Murat and St. Charles East seniors Connor Davis and Mike Muir.
“I knew at the beginning of the day that we’d have to win all the matches to win conference,” Mizikar said,
After winning the first set, 6-2, the Bulldog duo raced out to a 4-1 lead in the second. But the Saints fought back, winning the next two games before Mizikar and Murat put the set away, 6-3.
“I made a couple of errors that I should not have, but we got back on our feet and finished it out,” Murat said. “Winning conference was coach Kummer’s main goal for the season, and that we could win it for him is just awesome.”
Batavia also won the much anticipated showdown at first singles as Josh Cogan bounced back after dropping the second set to St. Charles East’s Jasper Koenen.
Cogan was outstanding in the opening set, dictating the flow of the match and cruising to a 6-2 win.
“I came out of the gates really strong and I think I surprised him a little bit,” Cogan said.
But Koenen responded with a dominant performance in set two, turning away everything Cogan threw at him, and won it by a score of 6-1. With his shot at a final conference title in the balance, the Batavia senior dug down and pulled out a 6-3 third set win.
“He really stepped it up and I was having trouble with his serves,” Cogan said. “After the second set I sat by myself and thought about what I needed to do.”
St. Charles East’s Justin Bowman won the second singles title in impressive fashion, sweeping Elgin’s Reza Khan, 6-2, 6-2.
“He kept a lot of balls in, and I just needed to be more consistent than him,” Bowman said.
Adam Maris earned Batavia another singles championship, beating Nick McCarty of Geneva, 6-4, 6-3, at No.3.
“We didn’t have as many of the elite players as some of the other teams in our area, so all in all I’m very pleased with the way our team played,” Geneva coach Peter Burkhardt said.
As they have all season long, the North Stars dominated the doubles side, winning three of the four titles.
Danny Oakes and Dominick Amalraj were the first ones off the courts, easily beating Elgin’s Eric Chai and Sakda Kethdy, 6-0, 6-1, in the No.1 doubles championship match.
“It felt good to get this in the quick way that we did so we could then go support the rest our the team,” said Oakes, a senior who has now won three conference doubles titles with three different partners.
It was just another day at the office for the North Stars’ top duo, which has dropped only one match this season.
“We just stay on track and stay focused, and do our best from one point to the next,” Amalraj said. “That’s what we’ve done all year.”
Grant Spellman and Bobby Dunteman eked out wins in a pair of close sets that could have gone either way to beat Batavia’s Kyle Stiffler and Jeff Lorden, 6-4, 7-5, as St. Charles North claimed the second doubles championship.
The North Stars senior tandem of Eli McCray and Eric Pashan survived a tough second set to beat St. Charles East’s Matt DeSantis and Dan Rasmussen, 6-3, 7-6, to capture the No.3 doubles title.
But it was the one that got away for the North Stars that may have been the difference maker, as the Batavia duo of Matt Potter and Matt McFarland, a fourth seed, won the championship match over St. Charles East’s George Spoerl and Chris Gicla 6-1, 7-6, after knocking off top-seeded St. Charles North in the semis.
“My kids fought hard from the beginning of the season, when everybody thought we’d be in the middle of the pack,” St. Charles North coach Sean Masoncup said. “We have to give it to Batavia. They came to play and won the matches they needed to win.”
Saints coach Rob Livermore was satisfied with the way his team made up 4 points over the North Stars to finish tied with their cross town rivals.
“I am really happy with how my whole team had a great tournament, and we’ve ended up just a few points away from a championship,” Livermore said. “We had a really well-balanced squad with two singles players and two doubles players in the finals.”
Moments after he’d been doused by his players, a dripping wet but joyful Kummer reflected on the final season of his 33-year career as Batavia’s head coach.
“As I go through each season I go through a little period of mourning that my seniors will be moving on and that it’s the last time I’ll coach them,” Kummer said. “But this year it’s a whole team that I’m not coming back to. This is a great way to end my last conference season.”