The Forester men's tennis team finished its 2011 season by scoring the second-most team points in the league at the Midwest Conference Singles and Doubles Championship Tournaments in Madison, Wisconsin, over the weekend. Lake Forest sophomore John Adams captured a league title at #2 singles and freshman Ryan Kreis and senior Jon Flaksman claimed the championship at #2 doubles.
Grinnell College tallied a league-high 90 points in the six singles and three doubles tournaments and the Foresters were next with 75, their highest total since 1999. Lake Forest, however, had to settle for fifth place in the conference because the first four spots were decided by Friday's four-team championship tournament, which Grinnell won. Monmouth was the runner-up on Friday and scored 60 points over the weekend. Friday's semifinal losers, St. Norbert and Lawrence, shared third place and finished with 41 and 37 points, respectively.
Five Foresters reached their respective championship matches in Saturday's singles competition. A year after claiming the title at #3 singles, Adams moved up a spot in the lineup but still came out on top. He knocked off the top seed from Grinnell 6-4, 6-2 in the semifinals before defeating Monmouth's #2 player 6-2, 6-1 in the final. Adams is the first Forester in 60 years to claim conference titles in back-to-back seasons at two different positions in the lineup.
Kreis eliminated Monmouth's best 6-0, 6-3 in the semifinals at #1 before falling to Grinnell in the final. Junior Elliot Muth posted 6-2 victories in both sets of his semifinal match at #3 but also fell to a Grinnell player in the championship. Flaksman was the top seed at #4 and advanced to the final before being edged out 6-4, 7-5 by Monmouth. The most unlikely of appearances in the championship match came at #6 where freshman Anthony Warren, who suffered an injury early in the season and was playing his first official matches of the year. The unseeded Warren prevailed 6-3, 6-4 over the #2 seed from Monmouth in the quarterfinals and blanked the #3 seed from St. Norbert 6-0, 6-0 in the semifinals before dropping a 6-4, 6-1 decision to Grinnell in the championship.
Senior Chris Paterakos won 6-0, 6-3 in the quarterfinals at #5 before falling to Monmouth in the semifinals.
Kreis and Flaksman fell to the #2 doubles team from Monmouth three weeks earlier but avenged that loss with a 6-3, 6-4 triumph in the semifinals on Sunday. They went on to defeat Grinnell 6-4, 6-2 in the final to claim the title and finish the season with 13 victories in their last 14 matches.
Adams and Muth defeated Monmouth 6-3 in the first set of their semifinal tilt at #1 doubles but fell 6-2 in the second set and 6-3 in the third. Junior Tommy White and freshman Jerry Wang were defeated in the quarterfinals at #3 doubles but came back to post 8-1 and 8-0 victories to come out on top in the consolation bracket.
Flaksman and Paterakos finished their four years at the College ranked second and third in program history with 107 and 106 career victories, respectively. Flaksman's 57 singles win are tied for the second-highest total by a Forester and Paterakos' 51 singles triumphs rank seventh. Paterakos in second with 55 doubles victories and Flaksman ranks third with 50.
Adams and Muth set a new team record for #1 doubles victories in a season with 12. Kreis and Flaksman had 17 triumphs on the year, the third-highest total by a Forester doubles team at any position.
Flaksman and Paterakos are the only players head coach Jason Box will lose to graduation before next season.
