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Jul 25, 2023

Girls tennis: Stevenson falls in final at New Trier invite

At least three leashed dogs witnessed the action at Saturday's New Trier girls tennis invite at the A.C. Nielsen Tennis Center in Winnetka. The players, meanwhile, unleashed loud shot after loud shot,

At least three leashed dogs witnessed the action at Saturday's New Trier girls tennis invite at the A.C. Nielsen Tennis Center in Winnetka.

The players, meanwhile, unleashed loud shot after loud shot, eliciting rounds of applause from humans and approving barks from pets.

"Wow! Wow!" a fan exclaimed after New Trier's No. 1 singles player, senior Madison Liu, answered an impressive groundstroke from Stevenson sophomore Kriti Mohan with a ferocious clean winner that had barely cleared the net in the championship dual meet of the 16-team gathering.

Liu, who took fourth in singles at last fall's Class 2A state tournament, wound up winning in straight sets as New Trier Blue (one of three NT squads in the bracket) defeated Stevenson 5-0 in the two-singles, three-doubles format.

Stevenson's Patriots battled without two-time reigning Class 2A state singles champ and Penn commit Sarah Wang, who wielded a pencil rather than a racket while attempting to ace a completely different kind an opponent on Saturday -- the SAT.

First-year Pats coach Isriz Balase, a 2011 Schaumburg High School graduate, used a variety of lineups at the two-day, four-site invite, deploying 12 netters in all. Stevenson downed New Trier White 5-0 and Glenbrook North 4-1 on Friday and then bested Highland Park 5-0 in a semifinal Saturday morning.

"My talented players are hungry to not only compete and win but to learn as well," Balase said. "They've been consistently responsive since I started working with them two weeks ago, eager to pick up doubles and singles strategies.

"It's a privilege to work with this group of young ladies," he added. "Our team fought hard and competed hard (against NT Blue), and everybody will get better as the season progresses."

Stevenson juniors Abby Ma and Sophia Shlyakhta took on NT Blue lefties Ariene Lesterhuis/Keri Rothenberg at No. 1 doubles in overcast, breezy, mild conditions. All four put on quite a display of shotmaking, with many of the rallies lasting more than 10 shots and often stretching the athletes to areas well wide of the alleys.

Lesterhuis struck more than a few sizzling, ear-popping forehands that would have reduced an exit-velocity radar gun to inoperable status.

Ma and current Stevenson sophomore Ana Sukovic finished in seventh/eighth place in doubles at the state meet last year.

Ma/Shlyakhta fell 7-5, 6-4 to Lesterhuis/Rothenberg on Saturday. Ma seeks to be more aggressive on the court than she was a year ago. Ma's powerful shots on Saturday often set up either a touch volley or an emphatic finish off Shlyakhta's racket.

"That was a really good match," Balase said. "A couple of points, here and there, maybe the result is different. New Trier played tough tennis on the key points."

Sukovic and sophomore Sona Surya (No. 2 doubles), junior Mariia Berezovchuk/sophomore Carolyn Ryan (No. 3 doubles) and freshman Emma Iwanowski (No. 2 singles) also hit the courts in the final vs. NT Blue. Previous invite lineups included Patriots Medha Veerathu, Emma Blass, Sasha Baer and Molly Hayden.

The invite's other Round of 16 winners Friday were Glenbrook North, Highland Park, Libertyville, Glenbrook South, New Trier Green and Loyola Academy. Libertyville defeated St. Joseph 3-2 before falling 3-2 to HP in a quarterfinal on Friday.

Other Daily Herald schools in the field were Barrington, Conant, Fremd and Maine South.

Additional final results (third through ninth place) were not available at press time.

Balase majored in religious studies and played three seasons of tennis at Judson College in Elgin. In addition to serving as Stevenson's girls tennis coach, he coaches boys tennis at Stevenson and teaches tennis at College Park Athletic Club in Bannockburn.

"The tennis court is my pulpit," he said.