Tuesday, May 20, 2008 11:10 PM CDT
Bays battles to state
By BRIAN NIELSEN, Sports Editor
bnielsen@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON -- Don’t get the wrong idea about Andy Bays being some racket-throwing madman on the tennis court.
“I don’t let the racket leave my hand because I feel that’s disrespectful to my opponent,” the Charleston junior said.
But things are not always quiet around the court involving Bays, who leaves little mystery about his feelings.
“I definitely show it,” he said. “I’m not overly proud of it but I tend to yell. That’s something I’ve got to work on. But everyone knows when I’m upset. Even in P.E., I’ll get worked up about something.”
Charleston coach Ryan Shick said: “He’s real intense. Sometimes he’s too hard on himself. The main thing for him is to keep a level head and not get too upset because that’s when things start going wrong.”
If that temper sometimes gets the best of him, the competitive drive has also taken Bays to the Journal Gazette/Times-Courier area’s only berth in this week’s IHSA boys’ state tennis tournament by finishing fourth in last week’s Effingham Sectional singles tournament.
The trip to the state meet starting Thursday in the Chicago suburbs was the preseason goal for Bays, one of the returning players for a predominantly inexperienced Charleston team under a new coach in Shick.
“I’d say it was a decent season,” said Bays, an Apollo Conference runner-up as well as state qualifier. “There were things that I need to improve on. There was one against Salem when I won the first set and lost the second and I could have won the second set. Then I lost the tie-breaker. It’s that closure that I needed to do.
“Obviously, making it to state is a bonus. I can’t be too upset.”
As much as he hates to lose, Bays considers one of his favorite matches a loss against Effingham’s Kory Poland, who defeated Bays in the Apollo Conference championship match and also won last weekend’s sectional singles title.
More than the scores of a match, Bays measures himself by his play and what he might learn.
Among the things he has learned in this sport he began playing in the recreation leagues as a kindergartner and then more competitively in middle school is that this is the one for him.
“I’ve tried just about every sport – roller hockey, golf, basketball,” he said. “But tennis is by far my favorite sport.
“I like it that my biggest opponent is myself and if I lose it’s nobody’s fault but mine. In football it can be somebody else.”
In tennis, Bays figures the outcome is determined on his own side of the net.
“I might sound a little arrogant but for me I either give an opponent a good shot to hit or I miss a shot,” he said.
That does not mean this fourth-place sectional finisher from a downstate sectional is expecting to go up north and beat the more highly touted state qualifiers.
“It’s going to be intense,” Bays said. “Everybody in Chicago is good. If I win it’s a plus but if I lose and learn something from it that’s good.”
Such is the message given from his coach as well.
“I’m telling him that pretty much our goal is to win the first round and give ourselves something to build on for next year, kind of a stepping stone,” Shick said.
The 2003 Charleston graduate knows something about the state competition having qualified when he was in high school. He even knows about the difficulty of getting a decent seed or draw.
“They don’t have much respect for anyone south of Chicago so he’s going to have to play someone really good,” Shick said.
These were comments before the IHSA released first-round pairings where the unseeded Bays is to play a Thursday morning match against Peoria Richwoods’ Chase Klaus, the Richwoods Sectional champion who received one of the 9-16 seeds. Bays’ first match is scheduled for Buffalo Grove.
Whatever happens as Bays tries to beat the odds and last into Friday’s competition in the state meet to finish Saturday, he plans to spend much of the off-season getting ready for next season.
“This year I definitely need to step it up and be on the courts five or six times a week,” he said. “The USTA offers a lot of tournaments. It should be as busy (in the off-season) as the season.”
After all, the more practice and the better Bays gets, maybe the less temptation he will face in getting angry with that guy holding the racket.
Contact Brian Nielsen at bnielsen@jg-tc.com or 238-6856.
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