MTP Men’s 4.0 Champions – Standing l-r: Howard Bushnell, Kent Mathis, Steve Fallon, Doug Gow (captain), Bob Biergans, Joe Watkins, Brett Ratay; (front) Mike Kurowski, Oswaldo Ganoza, Joey Tran, Rahul Gupte, Tom Lyons

According to Midtown-Palatine’s Karen Schmit who overseas the teams for MTP, “the rivalry between River Trails and Midtown-Palatine has always been fierce.”  It is a long-standing rivalry with both teams usually playing each other either in the playoffs or in the finals.  This year the Men’s 4.0 finals set the stage.  And as River Trails’ captain Bill Johnston put it, “This final wasn’t decided until after the lady had finished singing…and the result in the hands of the accountants.”  So let’s do the math.  On court 1, MTP’s Brett Ratay and Howard Bushnell laid into RTTC’s Joe Kreidler and Bob Zumph 6-0, 6-3.  On court 2 MTP’s Bob Biergans and Mike Kurowski also gave no quarter to RTTC’s Phil Dlouhy and Brian Lowy 6-3, 6-0.  The math was clearly in MTP’s favor 24-6.  Skipping court 3 for now, on court 4, RTTC’s Warren Erland and Dan Robin took away some of the game advantage by winning in 2 sets against MTP’s Joe Watkins and Tom Lyons 6-3, 6-1.  Skipping court 5, on court 6 RTTC’s Mike Boyle and Jon Erickson had a close match against MTP’s Oswaldo Ganoza and Doug Gow winning 7-5, 6-3.  Games were still tipping in favor of MTP 36-31 and sets were tied at 2 a piece.  On court 3, MTP’s Joey Tran and Rahul Gupte lost the 1st set 5-7 but regrouped to win sets 2 and 3 6-2, 6-2.  This match was giving MTP an 11 game lead 53-42.  On court 5 another 3 set match was happenning.  It wasn’t looking good for MTP’s Steve Fallon and Kent Mathis.  RTTC’s Bob Hinson and John Wentworth blew through the 1st set, winning 6-0.  But MTP came back and won the 2nd set 6-4.  The third set was close.  RTTC needed to win the set to even up the set counts but the 7-5 3rd set win was not enough to give RTTC the overall win in games and MTP won in games 64-59.  The rivalry will continue I’m sure…so stay tuned for next year’s results.   Not pictured above: Scott Allbright, Dave Appelt, Rob Block, Dave Cygan, Scott Forster (co-captain), Rich Gutierrez, Glenn Habib, Doug Johnson, John Kopsky, Mike Latimer, Dan Parks, Ken Raczek, Marc Romanz, Tony Stallone