Stevenson's Brej takes second singles title at Pitchford
The 2010 Pitchford 32 championships ended in much the same way as last season - not good news for anyone except Hinsdale Central.
The Red Devils appear to be on course to win their fourth straight state team championship in four weeks after cruising past runner-up New Trier 68-56 on Saturday afternoon at Hersey.
Fueling the Red Devils' title were championship belts from both doubles teams and a second-place finish at No. 2 singles.
Stevenson took third place with 48 points behind its dynamic singles pair of Blake Bazarnik and Richard Brej, who won the No. 2 singles crown.
Oak Park-River Forest was fourth, followed by Central Suburban League powers Deerfield and Highland Park. Defending Mid-Suburban League champion Fremd, led by a superb weekend from the doubles tandem of Kenta Shimizu-Ryan Kreis, recorded 33 points for seventh place.
Naperville Central, Lake Forest and Latin rounded out the top 10 with 29 points each, just behind downstate powers Belleville West and Edwardsville.
Defending state champion Bazarnik was part of the headline act with Stagg junior Tim Kopinski.
Kopinski (13-0) earned Pitchford No. 1 singles honors with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Bazarnik, perhaps solidifying a top-4 seed in the state tournament.
Bazarnik tried to stay in his match with the hard-hitting Kopinski after tweaking his right ankle midway through the second set. The injury rendered the four-year star nearly helpless at times, but he stayed afloat - winning several points in the final games on sheer heart and desire.
"It was at 3-3 (in the second set) and I was on the run looking to hit a forehand, and when I did I felt something kind of weird in my ankle," said the Patriots captain, who was examined by medical staff before returning to the courts.
Unable to move from side to side with his usual gusto and pace, Bazarnik (12-1) put up a valiant effort to stave off Kopinski until the 3-4 seed finished off the Patriots star.
"Tim won this match way before my injury, and he deserved the title today," said Bazarnik, who earlier in the day needed three sets to fight off a terrific comeback by three-time state medalist Augie Bloom.
Bloom later lost by injury default in his third-place match against Latin junior Ben Quozzo.
Bazarnik's hitting partner and teammate Brej (11-1) was outstanding en route to his title over Hinsdale Central sophomore Rafe Mosetick in straight sets - 7-6 (4), 6-1.
The win gave the senior, who spent the last two seasons away from the prep scene, plenty of ammo in his bid for a 5-8 state seed.
"(Rafe) and I know each other very well, and I treated that first set as if we were just hitting for fun, so I was way too lax and it showed as it went into a tiebreaker," said Brej, who reached the 2007 consolation doubles semifinals with partner Eugene Shylakhta.
"But I took the fight out of him in that second set by mixing things up and really hitting with my serve right down the T to take the match."
"Richard and Blake are always pushing each other during and after training, and his work to get fit and stay there is one of the reasons that you saw him look so strong in that second set," said Patriots coach Tom Stanhope.
While the doubles dominance Hinsdale's Nos. 1 and 2 was the story of the tournament, the show that Fremd's Shimizu-Kreis put on was also noteworthy.
The Vikings, who had defeated 5-8 seed Metamora on Friday, opened play Saturday by taking down 3-4 seed Edwardsville 6-4, 6-4 - setting up a semifinal against No. 1 Hinsdale Central (Dan Ballantine-Ian Tesmond).
The first keenly contested set featured plenty of terrific play at a blistering pace. The inspired Shimizu-Kreis (15-3) stayed even with their top-rated opponents at 3-3 until Central (14-0) held serve to go up 4-3. The Red Devils never looked back, finishing off the Vikings senior pair in straight sets 6-3, 6-1.
In a marathon third-place match against No. 2 Belleville West (Stathis-Segobiamo), the Vikings fell by scores of 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5), 6-0.
"Those (two) showed they can play with anybody this weekend," said Fremd coach Ken Goettsche. "They hit some great shots and played with a lot of confidence all throughout the tournament, and if they continue to work hard there's no doubt in my mind that they will be playing on the third day of the state tournament."
"Their style was a little different and it took us awhile to adjust (to) it, but we started to hold (serve) and closed things out at the net." said Central senior Ian Tesmond, who recently commited to Indiana University to play tennis. "We were able to control our match with them,
The Central pair had ended the run in the front draw of Naperville North's Reid Mutschler-Elliot Giraud on Saturday morning, taking a 6-4, 6-3 decision.
"We've shown that we can play with the really good teams, and in our match with Hinsdale, we did well - but we weren't able to get a couple of games here and there to make a difference," said Giraud, who with his partner lost to rival Naperville North for the second time in three days in the seventh-place match 7-5, 6-4.
"We gave away too many points in our quarterfinal match with Belleville West this morning, and that's not a good thing to do against a team that doesn't make a lot of mistakes to begin with," said Central coach Dan Brown of Kevin Bauman-Billy Sterrett.
"But we came back to beat North again, which was good, and I am sure we will see them again, at least hopefully in the conference finals in a couple of weeks.
Brown also celebrated the success of his No. 2 team (Neel Kunjur-Mark Bicek) after its consolation-championship victory over Edwardsville 6-4, 6-3.
Hinsdale Central's No. 2, Sammy Bloom and Krishna Ravella left everyone in their wake over the two-day tournament, droppping just eight games to not only win their title but make a case for a 1-2 state seed.
Barrington freshman Varun Prarekh came back from a tough start to win the consolation title at No. 2 singles (6-4, 6-3) over Jeremy Jacobson of Deerfield.
Hersey's No. 1 doubles team of Kevin Amarantos-Yuki Chiba nearly joined Prarekh after falling 6-3, 6-2 to Lyons.