Big tournaments bring out big competition as the Trojans battled hard on Saturday at Crown Point’s 8-Team Invitational.
Chesterton earned themselves a 4th place finish as #2 Zionsville won the event and #19 S.B. St. Joe placed 2nd, Lake Central 3rd just ahead of the Trojans in fourth place. #30 Valparaiso placed 5th.
“The last few years we tried to beef up our schedule the best we can and anytime you can compete in a tourney with highly ranked teams, it only benefits us and gets us match-tough for our normal team matches,” said coach Tom Bour. 
Varsity teams competed in 5 flights (1-2-3 singles & 1-2 doubles) and the outcome of those flights earned them points towards a team-total in the end.  Chesterton finished the day with three 3rd Place finishes, a 5th Place and a 6th Place finish.
At No.1 doubles, Senior John Powell & Freshmen Brock Redman went 2-1 on the day for a 3rd place finish.  They defeated Logansport & Crown Point, but fell to flight champions Zionsville in the 2nd round.
The Trojans No. 2 doubles team of John Petro & David Archibald went 1-1 on the day with a win over Hanover Central and a loss to Lake Central in the first round.  Playing-in for them in the 3rd round was Danny Vear & Ian Condes who clinched the teams 4th Place position with a win over Logansport.
“In these tournaments every point counts.  And in our case with Vear & Condes, that win at the end sealed our team’s position at 4th place,”said Bour.“Vear & Condes had the toughest job all day. They had to sit around for over 4 hours until their opportunity came to play and a lot of credit goes to that team to pull off a win for us.” 
In the singles flights, Chesterton’s Fabio Haiduc (No.1) and Drake Redman (No. 2) both went 2-1 on the day and senior Troy Feller placed 6th going 1-2 at No. 3 singles.
Haiduc defeated Crown Point & Valparaiso in straight sets, but dropped his match to Zionsville in the second round.  Redman’s only loss came at the hands of Zionsville, but defeated Hanover Central & Valparaiso in straight sets.   Feller had a two-hour long match to open the day verses Valparaiso where he lost 7-6(7-4), 5-7, 7-10.  Feller finished the day at No. 3 with a win over Logansport and a loss to S.B. St. Joe.
The Trojans will look to continue their strong play from Saturday and let it roll over to next week.  They play at Crown Point again for a head to head match on Wednesday, home verses Valpo on Thursday, and then travel Friday to #16 Terre Haute South for their invitational that starts on Saturday.