Five of seven girls tennis players return from postseason lineup of a year ago, including the top two, Kenzie Kania and Aleksa Sorgic, as Trojans hunt fifth consecutive sectional title

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Unless you are a high school tennis coach, counting to three should be simple: One, two, three.
It grows so much more complicated if you have two No. 1-caliber singles tennis players, and one experienced No. 1-caliber doubles player. Now you must figure out how to align them to give yourself the best chance of winning a third point.
Junior Kenzie Kania and senior Aleksa Sorgic both have spent a season as Chesterton’s No. 1 singles player. They are in the middle of a series of matches to determine which will take the No. 1 singles spot.
For the purposes of looking at how the rest of the lineup will fall into place, let’s assume that Kania remains the No. 1 singles player. Where then do you put Sorgic to pretty much guarantee a point against DAC and sectional opponents? The easy answer: No. 2 singles, where she’s not liable to lose.
But a smarter answer might be No. 1 doubles because paired with Amelia Smith, Sorgic isn’t likely to lose either.
“Amelia’s improved tremendously,” Chesterton coach Tom Bour said.
Arming Smith with Sorgic as a partner would enable Bour to take advantage of having a strong returning No. 2 doubles player in Anisa Faroh by leaving Faroh in that spot and choosing from the rest of the roster for the strongest possible partner for her to form a tough tandem.
Doing it that way would be trusting that the crucial third point (except against schools such as Crown Point, which has an elite No. 1) could come from No. 2 doubles, which a year ago with since graduated Ellery Denny as Faro’s partner was such a strong doubles team that it defeated mighty South Bend St. Joseph in the No. 2 doubles spot at regionals. Denny and Faro lost only one match last season.
If Bour decides that taking the better doubles player of the two No. 1-caliber singles players, which would probably be Sorgic, and pairing her with Smith would render unnecessary continuing the challenge series for the No. 1 singles spot and proceeding with Kania at No. 1 singles and the formidable Sorgic-Smith duo at No. 1 doubles.
The bonus to playing No. 1 doubles, as opposed to No. 2 singles, is that if the team loses in the regional round, the only ones eligible to try to advance out of regionals are the No. 1 singles and No. 1 doubles, so there’s that.
“She’d be a great doubles partner because she’s energetic and upbeat,” Bour said of Sorgic, who played No. 2 doubles as a freshman, No. 1 singles as a sophomore and No. 2 singles as a junior.
Having two No. 1-caliber singles players is a nice problem to have, especially considering the team-first attitudes Kania and Sorgic bring to the court every day in practice, according to Bour.
“I couldn’t be happier with the job Kenzie and Aleksa are doing as captains,” Bour said. “They worked very hard in the offseason, so that’s great. They both came back outstanding players.”
That is especially meaningful this season, given the unusually large size of the roster. Bour and assistant coach Scott Garrison have 31 players under their watch daily in practice.
Bour and Garrison let the players know every year that if they were on the team last year, they must improve to earn spots on the roster the following season. All 23 returning players, Bour said, improved, proof that they didn’t blow off the offseason. It’s a big number of players to coach, but it doesn’t seem as big when all the players are determined to improve.
Several will jockey for positions in the varsity lineup.
If Bour were to go with a Sorgic-Smith No. 1 doubles team, that would leave three spots open in the lineup: The No. 2 and No. 3 singles and a spot alongside Faro, on the No. 2 doubles. Pencil in senior Lauren Pilarski, last season’s No. 3 singles player, for one of the spots. If she plays her way into a singles spot or the final doubles one, that leaves two remaining openings in the lineup with at least four legitimate contenders to start the season there, one from each class: freshman Kendall Gallion, sophomore Genevieve Driscoll, junior Lizzy Navarro and senior Elena Clark.
“Lizzy Navarro’s improved every single day,” Bour said. “She’s been a bright spot for us.”
Navarro shapes up as a strong contender for either the No. 2 or No. 3 singles spot and there seems to be a strong chance Pilarski will open at No. 2 doubles.
It all starts falling into place Saturday.
The road to what the Trojans hope includes a fifth consecutive sectional title begins in Logansport, where Chesterton is one of eight schools competing in a tournament. Then the Trojans will have a chance to show how they perform against elite competition when perennial powerhouse South Bend St. Joe visits the Chesterton courts, a precursor to a possible regional match with the school that tends to end the Trojans’ season in that round of the playoffs every year.