Boys tennis: Sterling sweeps Dixon on Senior Night

STERLING – Playing in an unfamiliar spot on Senior Night, Sterling’s Jack Graves ended up on center stage.

Taking on Dixon freshman Jayvian Herwig in the No. 2 singles match, Graves bounced back from a slow start to take the first set, then rallied from a second-set loss to win a super-tiebreaker and complete the Golden Warriors’ 5-0 sweep of the Dukes.

“There’s a little pressure, but it felt good,” Graves said. “I think it’s a good way to end the home season, and a great way to have a good Senior Night.”

[ Photos from Dixon vs. Sterling boys tennis ]

Neither player is their team’s regular at No. 2 singles, but they put on quite a show nonetheless.

With all the other matches done, everybody was watching Graves and Herwig go back and forth. Herwig led 4-1 in the first set, but Graves won the next five games. Herwig then won six straight games to take the second set, setting up the super-tiebreaker to 10.

“I just had to get the momentum and keep it. I had the lead at first in the first set, so I knew I could get it back, and then I just kept it going,” Herwig said. “My coaches, they helped me a lot with keeping my confidence up, and I was able to win that second set.”

“I think it was all a mental game, I just had to get back in it and kind of knock out all the distractions in there,” said Graves about his approach to the tiebreaker. “It was all mental, just kind of switching the mindset.”

Graves jumped out to a 6-1 lead, then Herwig won the next two points to make it 6-3. Two more points for Graves made it 8-3, then Herwig won the next two to get within 8-5. The two traded points before Herwig’s return shot off a short-hop landed out of bounds to give Graves the 6-4, 0-6, 10-6 victory.

“I kind of went into the beginning of [the tiebreaker] thinking I was going to try to hit him hard like a truck or a tractor or something like that,” Graves said. “But at the end there, I figured it was going to be an endurance game, and I thought I could outlast him, so I just started to get my shots in and make him make mistakes.”

“I was already tired, my back was hurting a little bit, but it was a good match, honestly,” Herwig said. “First year for me ever playing, so it was so fun. It was nerve-wracking though, in front of everyone.”

Sterling rolled in the other four matches, as they all finished 45 minutes before the marathon at No. 2 singles. Brecken Peterson won 6-0, 6-0 over Damien Beck at No. 1 singles, while Hunter Lofgren and Ben Boze also won 6-0, 6-0 at No. 2 doubles over Bashar Elbzour and Samuel Gingras.

Sterling seniors Dayton Fisher and Abraham Gallardo defeated Dixon freshmen Gage Farster and Landon Arbuckle 6-0, 6-1 at No. 3 doubles, and the Warriors’ senior duo of Connor Pham and Elias Jensen topped Dixon sophomores Owen Winters and Derek Miller 6-0, 6-1 at No. 1 doubles.

Pham and Jensen said they were a good complement on the court in their final home match, as each played to his strengths.

“I was really liking my ground strokes, my forehands. I just tried to be steady like a tractor with them and get them in,” Jensen said. “It was a pretty good matchup for our Senior Night. It’s good to have everybody win.”

“Like usual, I feel like my backhands were really strong today, and the wind kind of helped it; I was able to hit really strong shots. I kept grinding like a tractor and it kept them on defense and allowed me to move to the net and just put away points,” Pham said. “I felt like I was playing really good at the net; when my opponent was serving and he and my partner started to rally, I would push balls and put them away. I just didn’t miss a lot of shots today – and that’s nice, especially because a lot of fans come here on Senior Night, so I like to impress.”

Pham and Jensen are looking forward to continuing their trend of success this season in their conference and sectional tournaments the next two weekends.

“I think Connor and I are a really good doubles team, and I think we have a good chance to win our sectional,” Jensen said. “We’re friends outside of tennis too. We’ve been in pretty much the same classes for all four years, so we can kind of read each others’ minds.”

“We’ve only lost two matches this year, so we’re doing really good,” Pham said. “We’ve won all of our conference and sectional matches, so we’re looking for a very good seed at both of those tournaments.”

Dixon’s Beck is looking forward to see how he stacks up in the postseason as well. Seeing a player of Peterson’s caliber so late in the season gives him a good sense of what he can expect at the Rochelle Sectional in two weeks.

“There’s really good competition around here; Brecken is the best I’ve ever seen, he’s very good,” Beck said. “It’s a good feeling, good experience. I’ve got to work on some stuff up to sectionals, hopefully give Brecken a better match next time. I know what I need to work on, and I know what Brecken has, so I’m just going to watch everything now and see how it plays out.”

The whole season has been one of learning and adjusting for the senior. A No. 2 doubles player last season, Beck has been thrust into the No. 1 singles spot this spring, and has enjoyed the challenge of changing his style of play and facing stiff competition match in and match out.

“Adjusting to singles has been interesting, just very different, much tougher competition,” Beck said. “It’s also more focus on the positioning on the court; you have to cover everything instead of just one side. I’ve got to work on power, because that’s what most people use in singles, from what I’ve seen.

“It’s a big change, but it’s a good change. I like it a lot. I’d say I’m more of an individual person; I don’t like having to rely on someone else. I feel like if there’s a fault, I’ll blame it on myself anyway. So I like singles better than doubles.”