Naperville Central earns tie atop DVC standings

Pressure? What pressure? Naperville Central first doubles Matt Mason and Justin Gillette didn’t feel any pressure.

With Thursday’s dual meet at archrival Naperville North tied 3-3, and the two teams undefeated and separated by one point in the DuPage Valley Conference standings, Mason and Gillette, after losing the first set, came back and won a grueling tiebreaker in the second set and then took the third set to give the Redhawks a 4-3 win.

Mason and Gillette defeated Steven Nguyen and Lee Charles of Naperville North 6-7 (0-7), 7-6 (13-11), 6-2

The victory leaves the two teams tied at 43 points going into the DuPage Valley Conference tournament next week where the championship will be decided as it has so many times between the two teams in recent years.

“The pressure didn’t get to me,” Gillette said. “In fact it pumped me up a little bit.”

“After losing the first set we tightened up our game and executed better,” Mason said.

“A lot of it was our energy. We just stayed aggressive.”

Until the Mason-Gillette win, the Redhawks had not won at with the Huskies taking both the second and third doubles. They also took a point at first singles where the Huskies’ Gordon Zhang won his match.

The Redhawks took victories at Nos. 2, 3 and 4 singles, so it all came down to that first-doubles match.

“Our guys could have put it away in the first set and they didn’t do it,” Brown said. “And Naperville North had a chance to put away the match in the second set and they didn’t do it. Our guys just stayed focused in the tiebreaker and the third set.”

Mason and Gillette have been playing as a team all year, and Brown was happy that their experience together really showed Thursday.

“You’re seeing their chemistry develop with each match,” Brown said. “They’re getting better and better, they’re more comfortable together and they’re building confidence in each other.”

Naperville North coach Heather Henricksen thought Nguyen and Charles carried their second-set loss in the tiebreaker over to that deciding third set.

“With the match in your hands and you drop that second set,” Henricksen said. “It can be difficult emotionally to win that third set. But we didn’t keep it together and Naperville Central played smart. They kept their heads on straight. They didn’t try to over-hit and do too much at the end. They did just what they needed to do to beat us. They saw the emotion on the court and stayed positive.”

Both coaches are looking forward to the two teams working out the final result at the DVC tournament.

“The fun thing is that it will all come down to the conference tournament, again,” Brown said.

“We had some kids who struggled at singles today,” Henricksen said. “But everyone will have a chance to redeem themselves at the conference tournament.”