State boys tennis: Springfield High's Noah Williams advances in consolation bracket

Springfield High senior Noah Williams, Rochester senior Paxton Garland-Sutter and a Sacred Heart-Griffin doubles team stayed alive after the first day of play at the Illinois High School Association Class 2A and 1A boys state tennis finals in the Chicago suburbs.

Williams, playing as a 9-16 singles seed in 2A, reached the third round in the championship bracket, but succumbed 7-5, 7-5 in a tough loss to No. 2 seed Andrew Spurck of Palatine Fremd.

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Williams lost just one game in his first two matches, beating Alex Sternowski of St. Charles East 6-0, 6-0 and then swept past West Aurora’s Josh Hartman 6-1, 6-0.

The tournament will continue for Williams on Friday when he faces unseeded Kabir Motwani of Hoffman Estates Conant in the fourth round of consolation play at Palatine Fremd.   

In Class 1A, the Sacred Heart-Griffin doubles team of Luke Harvey and Evan Aleman needed a third-set tiebreaker to get out of the first round. Harvey and Aleman clipped Andrew Bollis and Daniel Santoy of LaSalle-Peru 6-1, 3-6, (10-5) in their first match.

The Cyclones pair then defeated a familiar foe in Chase Boester and Yajath Narra of Normal U-High 7-6 (8), 6-1 in Round 2. Harvey and Aleman had beaten Boester and Narra in the semifinals of the Central State Eight Conference tournament on May 11 en route to a second-place finish.

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Harvey and Aleman battled but lost their third-round match 6-4, 0-6, 6-4 to 3-4 seed Maurice Neuman and Adam Tang of Chicago University. SHG will meet unseeded Liam Kerbel and Alex Jenkin of Sycamore in the consolation’s fourth round at Rolling Meadows on Friday.

Garland-Sutter, playing in 1A singles, finished the day with a 3-1 record and will meet 9-16 seed Yash Kaushik of Chicago Payton in the consolation’s fourth round on Friday at Wheeling.

Garland-Sutter won his first-round match 6-0, 6-0 over Beecher’s Zack Johnson. But 5-8 seed Ryan Nelson of LaGrange Park Nazareth Academy collected a 6-3, 6-1 win over Garland-Sutter.

Garland-Sutter produced two wins in the consolation bracket to stay alive. He defeated Lemont’s Ethan Bator 6-3, 6-1 and recorded a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Jordan Abbott of Glen Ellyn Glenbard South.

The Springfield doubles team of Krish Khurana and James Oh ended their Class 2A tournament with a 2-2 mark.

The unseeded Khurana and Oh faced an early tough draw and were beaten by 5-8 seed Alex Dolipschi and Eli Stein of Oak Park River Forest 6-3, 6-1 in the first round.

The Springfield tandem bounced back with two wins in the consolation draw with a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Bloomington’s Abhi Kumar and Hayden King before recording a 6-2, 6-3 triumph over Luke Hogan and Zach Graham of Geneva.

Khurana and Oh’s tournament ended with a 6-2, 6-2 loss to unseeded Evan Gerbie and Mike Wasilewicz of Evanston Township in the consolation’s third round.

Chatham Glenwood’s tournament as a team ended when both of its singles players were eliminated in Class 2A. Senior Ubaydah Mahmood, a third-place sectional finisher, lost his first-round match 6-0, 6-1 to 3-4 seed Alex Kotarski of Hinsdale Central.

Mahmood handled Lockport’s Ashton Plebanek 6-0, 6-2 in the first round of consolation play, and then fell to Chicago Kenwood’s Nhylan Westmoreland 6-2, 6-2 in his final match.

Glenwood sophomore Ben Loeffler, playing in his first state tournament, finished 0-2 in the singles draw. Loeffler was beaten by Nikhil Vijayakumar of Lincolnshire Stevenson 6-1, 6-1 in the first round and then lost to Will Geske of Huntley 6-1, 6-0 in the consolation draw.

Two more singles players from Class 1A concluded their state tournament run.

SHG’s Adam Wheeling won a championship bracket match by beating Owen Helm of Freeport 6-1, 6-3 in the first round.

Wheeling then fell to a pair of 9-16 seeds. He lost to Kaushik 6-4, 6-3 in the second round to slip into consolation play, and his tournament ended with a 6-1, 6-1 loss to Benjamin Temple of Rockford Lutheran.

Jacksonville’s Christian Bonner won a consolation match and finished 1-2. Bonner lost his first-round match to Dunlap’s Timothy Liu 6-4, 6-2 but defeated Taehan Lee of Urbana University 6-3, 6-7 (4), (10-5) in a third-set tiebreak.

Isaac Street of Newton posted a 6-3, 6-3 win over Bonner in the consolation’s second round to end the senior’s tournament.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Boys state tennis results for Springfield area for 2024