Wildkit Tennis Players Earn 4 Wins At State Tourney

Evanston’s singles and doubles players combined for 4 victories in 2 days before being eliminated from the Illinois High School Association Class 2A state tennis tournament on Friday.

The Wildkits finished in a tie for 22nd place with 6 points, same as Waubonsie Valley, Libertyville and O’Fallon. Hinsdale Central piled up 49 points to win the team championship behind a 1-2 finish in singles and a 2-3 finish in doubles, one of the best team performances in years.

For the Wildkits, sophomore Finn Pollard finished his first high school season playing No. 1 singles with a record of 17-12. Like the rest of the field, he opened tournament play at various tennis centers indoors due to anticipated rain (which didn’t come) on Thursday, defeating Colton Hume of Edwardsville 6-2, 7-6 (2).

Pollard lost to the No. 2 tourney seed, Andrew Spurck of Fremd, by a 6-0, 6-1 margin. In the consolation bracket --- where pro sets were used to determine advancement --- he eliminated a player he lost due during the regular season, Dominik Kaminski of Glenbrook South, by an 8-2 difference and then was eliminated 8-5 by Brent Chen of Hersey.

In doubles play, ETHS seniors Chauncey Wadsworth and Jake Chiss won over Shreyas Shah and Ethan Carlson of Sandburg 6-3, 6-3; lost to Jai Vallurupalli and Anthony Lipan of Hinsdale Central 6-3, 6-2; ousted Vivek Parashar and Ryan Briguez of Oswego East 8-1; and fell 8-2 to the Edwardsville team of Michael Karibian and Jade Dynamic.