Hinsdale C. serves notice in Fall Classic
After two straight weekends of rampant rainfall, tennis invitational tournaments finally returned to action.
Girls tennis players stretching from all across Illinois gathered for the Fall Classic at Prospect High School on Saturday.
The classic held three additional flights at Hersey, Rolling Meadows and Buffalo Grove High Schools.
Sixteen teams including Bloomington, Buffalo Grove, Conant, Deerfield Glenbrook North, Hersey, Hinsdale Central, Libertyville, Loyola Academy, Moline, New Trier, Oak Park River Forest, Peoria Richwood, Prospect, Rolling Meadows and St. Viator High Schools participated.
After 10 hours of tennis, Hinsdale Central registered first-place honors with 77 team points. New Trier followed suit in second place with 63 points and Glenbrook North took a third-place slot with 56.
Hinsdale Central players solidified their march to the top of the leader board as six out of seven finished in the finals.
"Throughout the week we're careful about not overworking our kids and focusing on fundamentals," said Hinsdale Central coach Robin Kramer. "We definitely had a good day. We have a healthy rivalry with New Trier and our teams are always very close, and today I'm glad we could be on top."
In the first singles bracket final, Deerfield sophomore Alexis Casati grabbed first place after defeating New Trier freshman Carol Finke 6-2, 6-2.
"I didn't go to the homecoming game last night, and I drank a lot of water," Casati said when asked about her endurance. "My ground strokes were really on today. I just played well."
At Rolling Meadows, where No. 2 singles and doubles played, Hinsdale Central second singles player Alex Solouyev tallied a finals victory over Deerfield's Mindy Borovosky 6-1, 6-2.
Hinsdale Central No. 3 singles player Shraya Soundaralian won her match against Moline's Alyssa Ray 6-2, 6-2 at Buffalo Grove.
The Hinsdale Central sophomore duet consisting of Marika Cusick and Caroline Lorenzini tallied a 6-3, 6-2 finals victory against their Glenbrook North opponent.
"We've known each other since we were six years old and started in the same club," said Cusick. "We motivated each other and always stayed positive. We're undefeated as a doubles team."
New Trier's No. 2 doubles squad won the championship match against Hinsdale Central's team at Rolling Meadows, while Hinsdale Central's No. 3 doubles team defeated Glenbrook North 3-6, 6-3, 7-4.
Hinsdale Central's fourth doubles team won their championship match against New Trier 5-7, 6-2, 7-3 at the Hersey location.
"The main thing with a long day like (Saturday), I tell the girls that everyone else is in the same situation," said Deerfield coach Rich Koukol. "My expectations were that we're a top team in the state, and I want to finish really in state. Our invite was rained out, so we didn't see a lot of top teams in our area.
"We need to take this into next week and step it up against top teams. We're not afraid of top players."