Morris senior Connor Barth was at the top of his game during play at the Class 1A La Salle-Peru Sectional on Friday at the L-P Sports Complex.

“This was a good day for sure,” Barth said. “Honestly everything in both matches was on today, from my serving and serve receive, playing at the baseline or at the net, playing aggressive or just to keep the ball in play, everything was just clicking for me.

Barth started his day with a 6-1, 6-0 victory over Princeton senior Jackson Mason in the semifinals, then went on to a solid 6-1, 6-1 victory over Metamora sophomore Matthew Poole to claim his third consecutive sectional championship.

[Against Mason] my game plan was to just keep it in and keep it deep, just keep rallies going until he made a mistake,“ Barth said. ”Then [against Poole] I wanted to be smartly aggressive. Both guys had pretty different play styles, so you have to adjust."

All competitors in Friday’s semifinal and title matches had already qualified for the state tournament, which begins Thursday in the Chicago suburbs, while pairings are expected to be released Tuesday afternoon.

“I’m excited for state and I have some pretty high goals set for myself this last go around,” Barth said.

Mason rebounded from the semifinal loss to Barth with a 6-1, 6-3 triumph over Morris junior Andrew Ochoa in the third-place match.

Ochoa had dropped a 6-1, 6-1 decision to Poole in his semifinal.

“In the semifinals, Connor is just so consistent, he just doesn’t miss,” said Mason, who advanced to state in doubles last season. “He makes it so tough to get consecutive points against him. It’s almost like when you do get a point from him it motivates him even more and he comes back super strong the next three or four points.

“In the third-place match I was playing to win, but I was also trying to work on some things that I’ll need to be better at next week at state. I was switching things up, one game I was trying to work on just keeping the ball in play, then the next I was trying to take some chances on first serves. I felt my serving, while not as good as [Thursday], was the best part of my game again today.

“I’m going to state to compete the best I can and see what I can do.”

Ochoa, who will be making his first to state, said while the day was frustrating, he’ll regroup and be ready to go next Thursday.

“I was playing [the third-place match] on the court right next to Connor’s championship match and he was just playing so well, so I was just trying to do the same,” Ochoa said. “I felt like I played hard, but it just didn’t work out.

“I’m happy with my first serves, I feel like I was putting most of them right where I wanted them. [Mason] is a very good player, and he was just better than me today. I’m a little disappointed right now, but very excited for next week.”

The Ottawa doubles team of seniors Kaden Araujo and Ayden Sexton fell 6-3, 6-3 to Metamora senior Dane Hutchison and sophomore in the semifinals, before coming back and outlasting Pontiac senior Zack Legner and junior Kole Donze 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.

“I feel like [the third-place match] was all about mental and physical toughness.” Araujo said. “We lost the first set, so right there we knew it was going to be a hard fight if we wanted to come back and win.

“I felt a step slow in the first set but losing that set really motivated me to pick up my game and just play better tennis.”

“We just weren’t playing as consistent as we needed to be in the first set,” Sexton said. “We just had way too many unforced errors and weren’t playing smart.

“We talked before the second set about how we knew neither of us played really well and we needed to get things going. It wasn’t our best match we’ve played this season, but I think we both are happy with how we were able to come back from being a set down.”

Metamora (30 points) won its eighth consecutive team sectional championship with Morris (20) placing second.