Return from injury, 1st win over old rival highlight Rockford sectional tennis results

Hononegah sophomore Braden Monson is going to state again, and this time as a sectional champion.

He was the lone Rockford-area champion from four local sectionals Saturday, but two other local players were probably bigger news.

Guilford junior Santiago Herrera, who broke his neck playing hockey in November, not only made an amazingly quick return to the tennis courts, he made it to state after switching from singles to doubles. He and partner Altan Griffeth finished third at the Class 2A Guilford Sectional, rolling over East Moline United’s top team 6-1, 6-1 in their final match.

More: Inside Guilford boys tennis player Santiago Herrera's return from a broken neck

And Rockford Lutheran senior Ben Temple made a bid for earning a top-16 seed at state by upsetting Sterling’s Brecken Peterson in the Class 1A Freeport Sectional. Peterson finished 3-2 at state last year and was one of the final 32 players left before getting eliminated in the fourth consolation round.

Temple had lost to Peterson twice before, once last year and then earlier this year.

“The first time I lost 0-6, 4-5, which I already thought was pretty good,” Temple said.

But Temple has improved dramatically this year. He showed that early in the season, losing 14-12 to Peterson in a 10-point super-tiebreaker after splitting the first two sets. Temple dropped the first set in Saturday’s semifinals, but rallied to win 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-4).

“That was my first win over a 7 UTR,” Temple said of Peterson’s Universal Tennis Rating. “That told me I can push myself to compete at that level.”

Temple lost 6-1, 6-0 in the finals to Rock Island Alleman junior Nicholas Patrick. But that was also good: Patrick is a two-time Class 1A state champ. He beat Rockford Christian’s Finley Buelte in the finals as a freshman. Last year, Patrick lost a total of five games in 10 sets at state before the finals.

“I’ve never been double-bageled before,” Temple said. “I thought it was going to happen. The fact that it didn’t to keep my lifetime streak going was pretty amazing.”

More: How this Rockford sectional tennis champion has gotten so much better in one year

Lutheran coach Nick Born praised Temple’s mental game in outlasting Peterson in a match that lasted 2 ½ hours.

“Mentally, he stepped into being more aggressive and just going out and playing his game after a slow start in that first set,” Born said. “Once he kicked it into gear, he was playing good all-around. Both of them were. It was just a great match to watch. Ben was really going for the angles.

“Ben has a good shot to make some noise at state this year.”

For Herrera, like most local players, the goal was simply to get to state. It was far more unlikely for him, though. His teammates and coach originally didn’t think he’d even play this year. But he recovered quickly from an injury that nearly left him paralyzed. He finished fourth in the NIC-10 at No. 1 singles and a switch to doubles for sectionals helped him get to state.

Herrera and Griffeth clinched a state berth with a 6-1, 6-3 quarterfinal win over Hononegah on Friday. Their lone loss was a tight 6-3, 7-6 semifinal defeat to Moline before bouncing back to take third easily in their 2A sectional.

“We could have gotten second, but our first match in the morning we weren’t in the zone to hit all our shots,” Herrera said. “We were missing a lot. We played again 20 minutes later and decided to hit everything in. It went a lot faster.

“I had only played two doubles matches with (Griffeth) before sectionals. We didn’t have a lot of experience playing together. But we have hit a lot of times together in practice. We were pretty comfortable with each other.”

Monson and Auburn’s Austin Altangerel were the other NIC-10 players to advance out of the Guilford Sectional. Monson beat Altangerel 6-3, 6-3 in a repeat of the NIC-10 singles final two weeks ago.

Also advancing to state were Freeport senior Owen Helm, who took fourth in singles in the 1A Freeport sectional, and two fourth-place finishers at the 1A Belvidere North sectional: North’s Jayden Curtis in singles and Rockford Christian’s Gianni Racanelli and Arry Fu in doubles.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: From broken neck to state and other Rockford sectional tennis results