Monday, Oct. 13, 2008

Belleville West completes sweep of SWC championships

BELLEVILLE -- The perennial tennis queens of the Southwestern Conference, the Belleville West Maroons ruled the courts once again Saturday at the SWC Tournament.

Nicole Sonnenberg and Alanna Kurek scored straight set wins to pace an overpowering Maroons effort in singles as West clinched the league title at Belleville West High School.

The Maroons, who won two of three doubles flights on Friday, won five of six singles divisions to finish with 69 points, 13 more than Edwardsville.

Coupled with a perfect 7-0 conference mark in dual matches, the tournament title gives the Maroons the outright SWC championship.

Assistant coaches Bob Keefe and Tricia Altmansberger coached the Maroons this weekend, filling in for coach Becky Holzgrafe, who gave birth to her first child earlier this month.

Keefe, who led the Maroons program for nearly 30 years before retiring two years ago, said the league championship means more this year because of the overall strength of the SWC.

"From top to bottom this was as strong a conference as I can remember, so to be able to win seven of nine flights means a lot," Keefe said. "Granite City and Alton were strong and along with (Belleville) East, Edwardsville and O'Fallon, it was just a very strong league this year.

"I was very pleased at how all three doubles teams played on Friday. To be able to win two of three flights gave us a lift and we were able to carry that over until today."

The Maroons' Kelsey Delsignore and Sonnenberg defeated Granite City's Jennifer Kim and Hannah Wadlow 6-4, 6-3 in the No. 1 doubles flight while Kurek and Sarah Benson won the title at No. 2 doubles.

Edwardsville's Tess Severin and Paige Sturley won No. 3 doubles.

Granite City junior Jennifer Kim won the SWC singles championship with a 6-1, 6-0 victory over Alton's Allison Callahan in the No. 1 division.

Sonnenberg won the No. 2 flight, while Kurek won at No. 3.

Other West champions included Benson (No. 4), Paige Elbe (No. 5) and Ali Chadwick (No. 6).

Edwardsville finished with 56 points, followed by Belleville East (50), Alton (44), O'Fallon and Granite City (40), Collinsville (16) and East St. Louis with 10.

Contact reporter Dean Criddle at 239-2665 or dcriddle@bnd.com.