Sports

Boys Tennis: Oswego East edges Oswego for first conference crown

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Oswego East's Alex Hwang plays a shot at the net while teammate Ashwin Ramesh remains ready in the back in the first doubles championship match against Romeoville during the Southwest Prairie Conference tennis meet at Plainfield East High School on Saturday 8, 2017. (Steven Buyansky)

By JOSHUA WELGE

Oswego East's tennis milestone was especially memorable.

The Wolves won their first Southwest Prairie Conference team championship on Saturday, just edging defending champion Oswego.

Tied 46-46 during the regular season, the Wolves wound up with 72 points to Oswego's 71 in a meet that came down to the last match. Oswego East won six of its seven matches on the second day of the conference meet.

"We carried ourselves with character and determination all year, and came together as a team," Wolves coach Scott Gengler said. "I'm really happy for our seniors and guys who put in the hard work and happy for our freshmen that got that experience of winning."

One of those 11 freshmen, Ashwin Ramesh, teamed up with Alex Hwang to take the championship at No. 1 doubles. The Wolves' duo came back from down 1-5 in the first set to avenge a regular-season loss to Joliet 7-5, 6-3, then fought off Romeoville in the final 6-3, 1-6, 6-3.

"We were the higher seed, but Joliet had beaten us before and Romeoville put out their two best players," Gengler said.

At No. 2 doubles Oswego East's Ryan Chen and Ryan MacNicol, 11-0 in conference during the season, beat Oswego's Darren Li and Dylan Patel 6-2, 6-4 in the final.

"That was a big statement for those two guys," Gengler said.

Oswego East also won a head-to-head championship match with Oswego at No. 3 singles, freshman Abhishek Malhotra (unbeaten in conference) topping Connor Backus 6-3, 7-5.

"That was key, winning those head-to-head matches," Gengler said.

Oswego East's Ryan Zaprzal was third at No. 1 singles, Nick Ubides was fourth at No. 2 singles and Colin Ritchie and Jaimin Vaidya was third at No. 3 doubles.

For Oswego, Adam Pflederer was second at No. 2 singles, dropping a 6-7 (7-0), 7-5, 6-2 match to Minooka in the final.

"It was a battle, the final match of the day," Oswego coach Ryan Parr said. "Adam played well."

Oswego's No. 1 doubles team of Connor Stark and Max Blount avenged an earlier loss to Joliet West with a 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 comeback for third place. Derek Ho and James Arellano were second at No. 3 doubles, Connor Sutton and Eric Butolph won a three-set match for first at No. 4 doubles and Anders Eckert was fifth at No. 1 singles.

"Oswego East took care of business where they needed to," Parr said. "I knew it would come down to one or two points either way. This year it went their way."

Both Oswego and Oswego East will compete at the Class 2A sectional at Naperville North this weekend.

"It's one of the toughest sectionals in the state," Gengler said. "Naperville Central could be a top three team in the state, Naperville North is a good team and so is Neuqua. We'll compete and do our best. That's all you can ask for."