The Lake Forest College handball team traveled to Indianapolis for the Circle City Tournament over the weekend. It was a homecoming for sophomore Samantha Zender, who hails from Fishers, Indiana. She teamed with senior Maria Dugas to win the Women's Doubles title.
Zender and Dugas won three matches, including a 21-16, 21-5 triumph over senior Ann Szutenbach and junior Amalia DeSardi in the final. The two teams lost a total of just 12 points in their quarterfinal and semifinal matches combined.
Dugas was also the top women's singles player at the event. She did not surrender more than seven points in any of her four matches and she defeated Emily Zender, Samantha's sister and a 2010 graduate of Lake Forest College, 21-2, 21-6 int he final.
DeSardi and Szutenbach each won twice to reach the semifinals before falling to Dugas and the older Zender, respectively.
Forester freshman C.J. Laffey matched Dugas by winning championships in both Open Singles and Open Doubles. After a 21-20, 21-14 semifinal upset of junior Isaac Acosta, Laffey came from behind to defeat senior Riley Kloss 12-21, 21-4, 11-7 in the singles championship. Acosta and Kloss were the tournament's #1 and #2 seeds, respectively. Laffey and Acosta also teamed up to defeat Kloss and freshman Eric Matiasek 21-10, 21-3 in the doubles final.
Lake Forest junior Derrick Contreras was the runner-up in Men's A Singles and senior Dan Sterrett and junior Justin Novak each reached the bracket's semifinal round.
Juniors Geoff Douglas and Clark Creasey met in an evenly-matched Men's B Singles final with Douglas coming away with a narrow 15-21, 21-15, 11-8 victory.
Douglas and junior Pete Jansen also rattled off three straight victories to finish first in the Men's B Doubles Division.
After taking next weekend off from competition, the Foresters will compete in the Illinois Handball Association Doubles Tournaments February 9-12.
