St. Charles N. doubles up St. Charles E.

Friday’s tennis match between St Charles North and St. Charles East shaped up as a battle of the Upstate Eight Conference contenders.

And at the individual match level it turned out to be exactly that. But the bigger picture had a different look to it as North dominated the doubles side, posted a big win at No. 2 singles and pushed the other two singles matches to a third set on the way to a 5-2 team win.

“We had some great matches from a lot of our positions,” St. Charles North coach Sean Masoncup said. “St. Charles East played hard matches and made us work for everything, but I was really proud of the way we fought and played the way that we wanted to play.”

Parker Featherston and Danny Oakes set the tone for the North Stars by quickly winning the top doubles match over Mike Muir and Brad Sullivan, 6-0, 6-3.

“We had to stay focused and get on them from the beginning,” Featherston said.

After dominating the first set, Featherston and Oakes found themselves in a more difficult struggle to win the second as the Saints fought to make it interesting.

“We just wanted to keep it going and not change anything, because we didn’t need to,” Oakes said.

At second doubles, Pat Corrigan and Jeff Terwilliger were locked in a tough back-and-forth opening set against Sam Decker and Matt McCarthy until Masoncup intervened.

“We had a chat, I wanted to them refocus and continue to attack the way they needed to, and they really put it together took over that match,” Masoncup said.

The North Stars’ duo squeezed out a 7-6 first set win, then rolled to a 6-0 capper in the second.

St. Charles North also swept the third doubles match as Eli McCray and Eric Pashan beat Ben Steele and Mark Homann, 6-3, 6-1, as well as the No. 4 doubles, where Cam Staroske and Grant Spellman made quick work of Musa Chaudhry and George Spoerl, 6-0, 6-1.

“Those were good wins for us,” Masoncup said. “Our depth paid dividends today.”

The day’s best match was, appropriately, played at No. 1 singles where St. Charles East freshman Jasper Koenen won a grueling marathon over John Mittvick.

“It was a fun match, especially playing against our rivals,” Koenen said.

After Koenen muscled out a 6-4 win in the first set, he raced to a 4-0 lead in the second. That’s when the entire tone of the match began to change.

“When I was up in the second set after winning the first, everything was going smoothly and I felt really good,” Koenen said. “Then he started winning games and before I knew it we were tied 4-all.”

Using his potent serve as a weapon, Mittvick fought back to win the second set by a score of 7-5, setting the stage for a decisive set that would turn out to be tight and tense.

Though Mittvick continued to challenge with his serves, Koenen was able to respond more consistently, and managed to cut down on his errors, which had dogged him in the second set. The result was a 6-4 win in the decisive set for the Saints’ top singles player.

“In the third set I just kept my cool and when I didn’t win the point I just moved on to the next one,” Koenen said.

For Mittvick, who has spent most of the past four years playing doubles, the long, physical match represented another big step forward as he works to develop into a more complete player.

“I got really tired,” Mittvick said. “I can just imagine what might have of happened if I’d played singles all along.”

As tight as that match was, the second singles match was almost its equal. St. Charles East sophomore Justin Bowman cruised to a 6-1 opening set win over Dominick Almaraj, and all signs pointed to a quick win for the Saints.

Except Almaraj didn’t read any of those signs and rallied from a 4-1 deficit to win the second set, 6-4.

“I was really nervous in the first set, and Justin played very well,” Almaraj said. “I fell behind in the second, but (Masoncup) talked to me and pepped me up. That really motivated me, and I was able to come back.”

Bowman got off to a good start in the third set, playing the angles, pounding the corners, and keeping his opponent on the move. But Almaraj got into a groove midway through, began to rack up points, then games, and went on to win the set, 6-3.

“This is a great win for me and I hope to build on it for the rest of my season,” Almaraj said.

The third singles match also turned into a nail-bitter as Nick Maze fought off a strong challenge from Connor Davis to give the Saints their second win of the day by a score of 7-5, 4-6, 7-5.

Despite the close wins and impressive efforts, it was a disappointing day for the Saints, who had hoped to head back home with at least a couple more wins on their side of the board.

“We knew it was going to be a tight match,” St. Charles coach Rob Livermore said. “We were hoping to pick up a doubles win, but we expected a grueling match that could have gone either way, and today it went their way.”

With the win the North Stars improve to 7-1 and 3-0 in the conference.

“I’m proud of our whole team,” Masoncup said. “St. Charles East came here to fight, and that’s exactly what they did, but we managed to play our game and did what we needed to do to win the matches.”

The Saints are now 4-6, 2-1.