Thats right 5-1 in two days! This is the first time in my coaching career we have played 6 matches in two days. So far it has been a wonderful experience breaking into groups for dual matches. It gives the guys much needed match play experience and the opportunity to play in a team environment.
On Sunday I split the teams into the more experienced team and the rookie team. The rookie team consisted of Matt, Nadeem, David, Jake, Jasper, Thomas and Robert (not a rookie). They were shipped out to Salem with rookie coach Brad to play Willamette. Willamette is a much improved team and have a nice freshman addition in Donovan LeDoux. Last weekend Donovan dropped a close three set match to Phalkun so I knew Matt would have his hands full at #1. The rookies certainly rose to the the challenge sweeping the match 9-0! Both David (playing #2) and Thomas (playing #6) showed their mental toughness grinding out matches in 3 sets.
While the rookie team was battling in Willamette in Salem I took the more experienced crew to play Linfield. Of all the matches over the weekend this was the match I was most concerned about. Linfield is a very well coached and their guys always compete hard. Plus because of the weather we were forced to play indoors on their fieldhouse (multi-purpose) courts. These are very fast, slick courts that are hard to play on. It is a huge advantage for the Wildcats when they play dual matches on these courts. I was also nervous about the match since I sent the rookie dynamic duo of Matt and Nadeem to play Willamette. Going into the match we were down our #4 singles player and our #2 doubles team!
As expected the match was tight from the start. Phalkun and Steven continued their strong run in doubles quickly downing the Linfield #1 team. However the doubles got real interesting as both #2 and #3 doubles went down to the wire. At #3 doubles freshman Dan "milkman" Wilson served for the match at 8-7 only to feel the pressure and dropped his service game at love. The Linfield team took advantage of the break to win the tie-breaker 8-6. With the doubles tied at 1-1 the doubles points came down to a serving slug fest at #2 doubles. With 4 guys serving huge on the quick courts there were no breaks of serve and the match went to a tie break. In that match Linfield senior Ian McGrath showed the depth of his character when he overruled his partner on a close call awarding the point to the Whitties. Its rare to see athletes make such a gesture little alone when it was in the tie-break of a tight match! Robbie and Christoph ended up winning that match to give us a 2-1 lead.
We had a bit more drama in the singles as Justin Hayashi needed to be pulled from the line-up because of a sore shoulder. This forced Dan to move into the #5 slot and sophomore Reid Bennett moved to #6.
In singles we were able to find our groove and win #1, #2, #3, #5 in straight sets. At #4 Christoph played a great match but ended up losing to a big serving John Roberts 11-9 in the match breaker. Christoph played a great match only getting broke once the entire match. The Linfield player simply served too well and possessed too much experience on the slick courts. Similarly Reid played a solid match but lost in straight sets to a two year Linfield letterman.
Leaving Linfield with any victory feels good. Beating them without our #2 doubles team and two singles players on those fast courts was a great effort.
The day wasn't over for the rookie team as they had to eat on the run and high tail it back to Portland to take Pacific. The rookies once again showed their promise defeating the Pacific team 9-0.
We are currently 11-2 overall and 10-0 in conference play. Our only two losses so far have been to the #75 team in DI and a tough UC Santa Cruz team (#7 NCAA III). Interesting to note that over the weekend UCSC defeated Emory (#1 team in the nation) 6-3 and Claremont (#3 in the nation) 9-0.
This Saturday we play at home against PLU at 9am, UPS at 2pm and will be sending a team to Spokane to play Whitworth at 10am.
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