Chesterton High School boys tennis great Luke Sorgic plays his final match in a quarterfinal loss to Bishop Chatard’s Casey Beckmann on Friday in Indianapolis

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Luke Sorgic’s high school tennis career ended late Friday afternoon on Court 2 at swanky Park Tudor in Indianapolis, and his coach, Tom Bour, shared where he ranks him in Chesterton High School history: “Head and shoulders better than anyone who’s walked those hallways with a tennis racquet.”
Just not quite as good as Bishop Chatard sophomore Casey Beckmann.
Showing a remarkable ability to return well-placed, searing shots, Beckmann moved onto the semifnal round of the IHSAA individual singles tournament, defeating Sorgic 6-3, 6-1.
Sorgic, the first player in the history of the Trojans’ boys program, was one of six players to make it to the quarterfinal round of the state tournament. The field was pared to four Friday and a champion will be crowned Saturday at Park Tudor. Beckmann (19-1, 6-0) faces Center Grove’s Yuvraj Dasari (12-4, 5-0) in a Saturday morning semifinal. Sorgic finished the season with a 19-3 record and went 7-1 in postseason play.
Early in the first set of the Beckmann-Sorgic match, the crowd was rapt watching the two talented players with different styles sending the ball back and forth, back and forth, with searing shots. Early, Sorgic won the majority of the long points, but Beckmann, who grunts loudly every shot, won most of them as he took control of the match.
The difference in the match?
“I would say his consistency, keeping every ball in,” Sorgic said. “Also, he played really well on big points and I thought he outplayed me on points that mattered. When I had break points, he was always able to keep the ball in and I wasn’t able to convert.”
One such instance came in the fifth game of the first set, when Sorgic came within one point of going up 3-2, but Beckmann wouldn’t let him.
From that point, Beckmann steadily pulled away.
“That kid just defended so well, so well,” Bour said. “Luke played outstanding. The ball just kept coming back and he just couldn’t win a lot of the big points down the stretch.”
Sorgic noted that he also had more service errors than his opponent.
“I think he’s in good spirits,” Bour said of Sorgic. “He should be proud of himself. Everybody is proud of him. The community is. The team is, and so is his family. He has a lot to be proud of. This has been great.”
Sorgic, three-time DAC MVP, won all 21 of his conference singles matches in three seasons after playing doubles as a freshman.
He said of Bour calling him the best player in school history: “It’s nice to hear that, for sure. He’s had a lot of good teams.”
Sorgic said he remains undecided as to whether he will play tennis in college.
Bour called the facility that he had not seen in a decade, “outstanding.” His first trip there came in the spring of 2015, when Chesterton’s Meg Modesto, the DAC MVP that season, made it to the quarterfinal round of the state finals and lost her match before going on to play at Valparaiso University.
“Same court, too,” he said.