2 Posts in one!

First off Congratulations to Conor Holton-Burke for being named NWC Men's Tennis player of the week. Playing #1 singles and #1 doubles, Conor went 6-0 including knocking off two 2009 All-Conference players.

Secondly, I uploaded photos from our Portland trip to Flickr. Some very good action photos and sweet photos from our alumni dinner in Portland. For those not familiar with Flickr -- most of my photos are tagged. Clicking on a tag will only show photos that contain a certain person.

Parents if you want copies of the pictures send me an email.

Portland Trip

Portland part 2

On President's day we wrapped up our swing through the Portland area with a 1pm match against Willamette (indoors). After playing a double header on Sunday in extremely cold weather and spending many hours in a bus the team was a bit stiff. However after a good warm-up the Whitties were ready for battle.

In an earlier post I mentioned the effects of graduating 7 seniors. Graduating that many good players could decimate at team. We were lucky to mitigate that effect by having strong player development and a talented freshman class (Andrew La Cava, Steven Roston, Will Husky and Atanas Atanasov). Something positive, however, has happened with the player graduation -- the current team has found its own voice. It appears that this year's team is about energy and passion. Honestly this might be the most vocal and energetic team I have coached. From top to bottom, from those playing to those watching, this team is absolutely committed to each other. I think playing the energized and vocal George Fox team Sunday awoke that voice.

On Sunday we played with the kind of energy and passion that is truly to awesome to watch. From the first point of doubles to the last point in singles the Whitman team played with incredible energy and love for each other. I know some will scoff at the term 'love,' but the chemistry on this team is special and the team support is overwhelming.

Willamette is one of the better teams in our conference and this year we only have the opportunity to play them once. Last year they finished 3rd in the conference but had a nice conference tournament where we faced them in the finals. This year they are a much better team: they return their talented top 4 players from last year and added two good players at 5 and 6. With a year of experience under their belts and two new players this is certainly a team to watch. Coach Toby Kraul has done great things for this program and they are certainly a program on the rise.

In doubles all three Willamette teams served first and all three were immediately broken. From that point on the Whitties were off to the races -- at #1 Andrew/Conor won 8-2, at #2 Jeff/ET won 8-2 and at #3 Matt/Quin won 8-0. I'm really impressed with the doubles results -- to play that well and post those scores against a good team is simply amazing.

We carried that momentum over to singles. At #1 Conor had a nice match winning 6-2, 6-1 over ITA finalist Cody Ferguson. Conor has to be pleased with this match since last year he narrowly defeated Ferguson in a match breaker. A few minutes later Jeff clinched the match at #4 with a 6-3, 6-0 victory. By the end of the Willamette match Jeff was flying around the court crushing every ball in site. At #6 Sam was down a break at 1-2 before winning 6-3, 6-0. At #5 I think Chris might of been down an early break but won 6-3, 6-1. Andrew was down 0-3 at #2 before getting a handle on nerves and posted a very good 6-4, 6-2 victory. Last match on was The Lion (ET) playing against a very talented Michael Baumgartner. Last year Baumgartner had an impressive freshman debut defeating three defeating NWC Players of the Year (including our own Matt Solomon). It was a very entertaining match to watch as both players were crushing the ball. In the end ET was a bit too much winning 6-4, 6-4. Great for the Whitman team to see ET start to regain his old form.

As a team we certainly rose to the occasion of an early season important conference match on the road. To sweep an improved Willamette team without losing a set (this might be the first time we have not lost a set to Willamette) certainly shows great team improvement and intensity.

We play our first home matches of the year this Saturday -- 1pm vs Lewis Clark and 5pm vs Linfield (#9 in the West Region).

Whitman 9 Willamette 0

Portland Trip Part 1

What a fun trip to Portland. Even though we didn't play until today we decided to travel to Forest Grove, OR on Friday night to watch our basketball teams play Pacific. I would like to think we gave our women's basketball team a bit of lift. I'm not sure if it was the very loud cheering or the shock of seeing the men's tennis team with "Missionaries!" painted across their chests but whatever it was the women's team a 22-0 run once we arrived at the gym! By virtual of the win the women clinched the #4 seed in the upcoming conference tournament. We stayed on to cheer on the men's team but unfortunately they dropped a heart breaker. Congratulations to Coach Ferenz and Coach Bridgeland -- both have done a tremendous with the Whitman basketball programs. The women finished the year as the #4 team in the conference and the men finished #2!

Today (Sunday) was a long, cold day of tennis. This morning we started off playing Pacific University at their covered courts. It was certainly chilly in the morning -- in fact, high during temp during the match was 42 with a wind chill of 39!!!! Fortunately going into the weekend we knew it was going to be cold so everyone brought heavy jackets, gloves and long underwear.

The cold weather wasn't our only problem today. We played a much improved Pacific team in their covered facility. The Pacific facility features three covered courts but the screens surrounding the courts are normal windscreens. With a covered roof and normal wind screens around the courts the lighting is very strange. The layout makes tracking the ball very difficult -- almost like watching a ball under a strobe light.

In doubles #2 (ET and Jeff) started off strong going up 6-0 in about 30 minutes. Jeff and ET's tremendous energy fired up the rest of the team and got us on the board with a quick 8-1 win. At #3 Quin and Matt won 8-3 and at #1 Andrew and Conor were deadlocked at 5-5 when they went on a roll winning 3 straight games.

In singles we maintained our strong play sweeping 5 of the matches in straight sets. Our only loss was at #3 singles where Jeff ran into a buzz-saw freshman Troy Zuroske. Troy played great tennis hammering huge serves all match. His serve coupled with the strange lighting made for a rough day for Jeff. I wouldn't be surprised to see Zuroske playing #1 for the Boxers in the next fews. After watching him play today I'm convinced he will be one of the top players in the NWC Conference.

Once the Pacific match finished we made sandwiches and headed to George Fox for our afternoon match. After a short warm-up we took to the courts to play an incredibly fired up Fox team. It was fun to see the Bruins completely fired up and ready to battle us for every point. I know their energy made us raise our level of play.

Once again Jeff and ET got us going with with a solid start (I think they again went up 6-0). Both #2 doubles and #3 doubles finished with 8-2 victories. At #1 doubles Andrew and Conor broke open a close match winning the final four games posting an 8-4 victory.

In singles we sat our normal #3 (ET) and #4 (Jeff). This gave Adriel Borshanksy (#5) and Steve Roston (#6) the opportunity to get in some valuable match play experience. Both rose to the occassion winning 6-1, 6-1, and 6-2, 6-1. The most competitive match of the day was at #1 where Conor Holton-Burke got a measure of revenge (Barnett handed Conor his only conference loss last year) defeating Scott Barnett 6-4, 5-7, 10-6. A bit of an interesting match. In the 2nd set Conor got up an early break and served for the 2nd set at 5-4 only to get broke and then drop the set. However in the tie-break he played inspired tennis racing out to a 6-0 lead before winning 10-5.

Big kudos to Coach Ninteman, he has turned around the George Fox tennis program and I'm sure they will be a force within the conference for a long time.

We finish our road trip tomorrow at 1pm match in Salem against Willamette. Even with warm weather in the forecast (high of 52), Willamette has decided to play the match off campus at an indoor tennis club (Courthouse)a few miles from campus.

Links to the matches

Whitman 8 Pacific 1
Whitman 9 George Fox 0

Special thanks to the Mah and La Cava families for the incredible hospitality this weekend.

Small matches changes for Sunday

Great weather in the Portland area this weekend so it now looks like our Sunday start time against Pacific is 10am and our George Fox match will be taking place on the George Fox campus (not Tualatin Hills).

Hope to see ya on the courts!

Incredible News!

Let me start off this post by stating what Whitman has meant to me. I came to Whitman in the fall of 1984 not knowing what to expect in college. As a first generation college student (my parents were the first in their family to finish high school) the concept of college was very foreign. For me Whitman College was an unbelievably powerful experience -- I am who I am today because of my Whitman experience. Plus I met my lovely wife at Whitman!

I was absolutely thrilled to return to Whitman as men's tennis coach (I was working as a DI coach). Those that have played for me the past 12 years know my passion for Whitman and the tennis team. One of my life/career goals has been to establish a endowment for the men's tennis team.

Today I'm so incredibly proud and humble to announce a gift was made to the College by my teammate Benson Porter ('86) to establish the Jeff Northam Men's Tennis Endowment. Without a doubt the establishment of this endowment is the most powerful experience in my professional life. When I first heard of the creation of the endowment I was absolutely floored and spent a good 30 minutes crying.

The establishment of this endowment will help ensure future generations of Whitman tennis players will receive a top notch experience. Expect an official announcement from the college in the coming weeks.

Portland Alumni Dinner Saturday Evening

We are having a team + Whitman Alumni dinner this Saturday 7pm at Nicholas Restaurant, 3223 NE Broadway, Portland, OR 97232

Please email me if you are planning on attending the dinner so we know how many to plan for.

Match time changes this weekend.

Weather might be an issue this weekend in the Portland area.

Our Sunday match against Pacific is now changed to 9am.

If we encounter wet weather the George Fox match will take place 2pm at Tualatin Hills otherwise it will be at 3pm in Newberg.

On Monday our match against Willamette will be at 1pm if indoors (Courthouse) or 2pm if dry (at Willamette).

Hope to see you at the courts!