The Ojai

Over the weekend Matt Solomon and Phalkun Mam represented Whitman in the 107 Ojai tournament. The only way to describe this tournament is "amazing". The tournament has over 1,500 participants spread across divisions ranging from juniors to men's open. Ojai has a great structure for the tournament. Because of the large number of participants matches start in outlying areas and as players progress through the tournament they move into Ojai.

In singles Phalkun didn't play so well and lost 6-4, 6-2 to a lower UCSC player. I know he was disappointed to make such a long trip only to go out in the first round. Matt faired a bit better defeating Billy Kingsbourgh of Redlands before falling to the #3 (Mikey Lim) from CMS. In that match Matt served for the first set 5-4 -- unfortunately after he got broke the wheels came off and he lost 7-5, 6-1.

Doubles was a pleasant surprise. Matt and Phalkun have maybe played together once all year so we didn't have any idea how they would do together. Turns out they played some of the best doubles of the year. In their first match they defeated the #2 team from Cal Lutheran 8-5. In their second match they defeated the #4 seed and #4 team in the region (Redlands #1) 9-8. In the quarters they lost to the eventually finalist (Pybas and Liberty-Point of UCSC) 9-8.

Their strong play gives us something to build on if we make the national tournament this weekend. Selections are later today. Hopefully I will post with some good news later tonight!

Whitties Fall in Conference Finals

Unfortunately our dreams of a National Tournament invite were squashed at the hands of PLU. We went into the conference tournament as the #1 seed going undefeated in conference play and defeated PLU twice during the year 7-2 and 5-4. We made it into the finals by defeating #5 seed Willamette who earlier upset #4 seed UPS.

In the Championship match we didn't play our best tennis and PLU played perhaps their best match of the year. We started off in trouble going down 1-2 after the doubles. Our only win in doubles was a 9-8 victory at #2 doubles (Robbie and Christoph). In #1 and #3 doubles we had many chances to break serve and take the lead but couldn't convert the much needed points. About half way through the opening sets we had a total of 11 break points between #1 and #3 doubles but couldn't convert a single one of them.

Even though we were down after the doubles we had our chances in singles. Things actually looked pretty good when we won the first set in 4 of the matches. The Lutes, however, battled hard and ended up winning two of those matches.

Any shot at the national tournament is now out of hands. There are 7 at large bids for the tournament and we are hoping to get one of those spots. For the most part we had a spotless record going 23-7 on the year with our only losses being to 3 DI schools and 3 top 10 NCAA III schools and our BLACK SATURDAY match against PLU.

Match scores

Doubles

No. 1 -- Miller/Larimore (PLU) def. Mam/Ly: 8-6
No. 2 -- Monday/Fuchs (Whitman) def. Loranger/Peterson: 9-7
No. 3 -- Floyd/Vidano (PLU) def. Solomon/Nadeem Kassam: 8-5

Singles

No. 1 -- David Miller (PLU) def. Phalkun Mam: 4-6, 7-5, 6-3
No. 2 -- Steven Ly (Whitman) def. Kevin Floyd: 6-2, 6-2
No. 3 -- Jeff Loranger (PLU) def. Robbie Munday: 4-6, 6-2, 6-4
No. 4 -- Justin Larimore (PLU) def. Matt Solomon: 6-3, 7-5
No. 5 -- Justin Peterson (PLU) def. Christoph Fuchs: 6-1, 6-2
No. 6 -- Jake Cappel (Whitman) def. Jared Vidano: 6-2, 6-3

Conference Tournament!

This weekend is the NWC Tennis Championships at the Yakima Tennis Club in Yakima, WA. With our undefeated conference schedule we earned the #1 seed and a 1st round bye. Our first match will be at 12:30pm vs the winner of #4 UPS/#5 Willamette. If win our semi-finals match the finals will be Saturday at noon.

Directions to YTC

Whitties get washed out, defeat Pacific, fall to DI Gonzaga

Saturday we broke the team into WhittieA and WhittieB for matches against conference opponent Pacific (at home), DI Eastern WA (Cheney), and DI Gonzaga (Spokane).

Before leaving for his medical school interview at Minnesota, Coach Brad was able to get WhittieB past Pacific 9-0. With the victory over Pacific we finished the regular season undefeated in the conference! It also means we go into next weekends conference tournament as the #1 seed.

WhittieA didn't fare as well as our counterparts back at home. We were part way through the first sets of the singles (we started with singles because of the weather) when the rain washed out the match. Unfortunately the rain out canceled one of the the most anticipated singles matches of the year between Phalkun and his younger brother Panharra. Panharra has had a great year for EWU defeating the #1 players from both Portland and Oregan. He is also closing in on EWU all-time single season win record. It is refreshing to see two brothers compete against each other showing both love and grace. Hats off to the Mam family for having such a special family!

The rain pushed our 1:30pm match against DI Gonzaga back to 7:00pm. Although Gonzaga gave us a good 5-1 thumping I felt we played well. Because of lack of court space and the late hour we started with singles. Freshman Jake Cappel played a brilliant match posting a 6-3, 6-1 victory at #6 singles. Even though the team score was 5-1 both Phalkun (#1) and Matt (#3) lost in 3rd set match breakers and Christoph lost a very tight match at #4. We were also playing without Robbie (normally #3) who is at the National Undergraduate Conference presenting the research from his thesis.

Big kudo's Coach Dreves (EWU) and Coach MacDonald (Gonzaga). Both these coaches have done an amazing job with their respective programs -- keep up the good work! Along with Coach Hart at WSU and the amazing Coach Fong at LCSC, the Eastern WA area boasts some very good college tennis teams!

WhittieA travels to Moscow, ID to take on the DI Vandals at 3pm today.

Match Scores
Pacific
Doubles
1) Deming/Wilson def Kai-Corpuz/Ford 8-2
2) Roston/Bennett def Honda/Forgey 8-2
3) Zippel/Strait win by default

Singles
1) David Deming def Josh Kai-Corpuz 6-0, 6-0
2) Dan Wilson def Ryan Ford 6-0, 6-0
3) Thomas Roston def Brett Honda 6-0, 6-0
4) Reid Bennett def Nick Forgey 6-0, 6-0
5) Kenji Strait def Alex Taimano 6-0, 6-0
6) Seth Zippel wins by default

Gonzaga
Singles
1) Phalkun Mam lost Bryce Cooper 6-4, 5-7, 10-8
2) Steven Ly lost Roman Dojcak 6-2, 6-1
3) Matt Solomon lost Brett Womack 6-4, 6-7, 10-6
4) Christoph Fuchs Lost Marco Pineda 7-6, 6-4
5) Nadeem Kassam lost Zack Radetsky 6-1, 6-1
6) Jake Cappel def Charles Adams 6-3, 6-1

Mam sets All-Time win mark, Netters go 3-0

First off let me apologize for the briefness of this article. Its a beautiful Sunday morning so I'm heading up to the mountain to follow my other passion -- fly fishing!

Historic weekend for the Whitties. We went 3-0 over the weekend sweeping conference opponents George Fox, Whitworth and Lewis-Clark College. This improves improves our team record to 21-4 and 15-0 in the conference. Although we still have one conference left, against Pacific, we have locked up the #1 seed in the conference tournament. Additionally breaking the 20 match barrier in DIII is an amazing accomplishment. In DIII tennis teams are limited to 20 "dates" of competition (multiple matches on a single day count as one date). I believe we are the first DIII team this year to break the 20 win mark.

Over the weekend Phalkun broke Whitman's All-Time win record and currently stands at 151 wins. It will be interesting to see how many more wins Phalkun can get this season. We take next weekend off and then have three matches against DI schools followed by our conference tournament. If Phalkun and/or the team qualifies for post-season play he might be able to stretch his wins into the 160's!

Nice article about Phalkun and the team on the front page of the Walla Walla Union Bulletion.

Match Scores
George Fox

No. 1 -- Mam/Ly (Whitman) def. Pearson/Jenness: 8-0
No. 2 -- Munday/Fuchs (Whitman) def. Ovenell/Vargas: 8-3
No. 3 -- Solomon/Hayashi (Whitman) def. McKenzie/Schulz: 8-3

Singles

No. 1 -- Phalkun Mam (Whitman) def. Kyle Pearson: 6-0, 6-1
No. 2 -- Steven Ly (Whitman) def. Mac Ovenell: 6-2, 6-0
No. 3 -- Robbie Munday (Whitman) def. Nick Jenness: 6-2, 6-0
No. 4 -- Matt Solomon (Whitman) def. Ralf Schulz: 6-1, 6-2
No. 5 -- Christoph Fuchs (Whitman) def. Jordon Vargas: 6-0, 6-0
No. 6 -- Dan Wilson (Whitman) def. Shawn McKenzie: 6-0

Lewis Clark

Doubles

No. 1 -- Mam/Ly (Whitman) def. Lindsay/Wheeler: 8-1
No. 2 -- Munday/Rye (LC) def. Allen/Ray: 8-0
No. 3 -- Justin Hayashi/Strait (Whitman) def. Moller/Matthias Kullowatz: 8-2

Singles

No. 1 -- Phalkun Mam (Whitman) def. George Allen: 6-3, 6-2
No. 2 -- Steven Ly (Whitman) def. David Lindsay: 6-0, 6-1
No. 3 -- Robbie Munday (Whitman) def. Luke Wheeler: 6-1, 6-2
No. 4 -- Thomas Roston (Whitman) def. Peter Ray: 6-0, 6-1
No. 5 -- Robert Rye (Whitman) def. Andrew Moller: 6-2, 6-3
No. 6 -- Kenji Strait (Whitman) def. Tom Youmans: 6-0, 6-3

Whitworth

Doubles

No. 1 -- Solomon/Kassam (Whitman) def. Anegon/Bourne: 8-2
No. 2 -- Jasper Follows/Cappel (Whitman) def. Carlson/Donnell: 8-6
No. 3 -- Fuchs/Wilson (Whitman) def. Storm/Abelar: 8-2

Singles

No. 1 -- Matt Solomon (Whitman) def. Ed Anegon: 6-2, 6-4
No. 2 -- Christoph Fuchs (Whitman) def. Scott Donnell: 6-1, 6-3
No. 3 -- David Deming (Whitman) def. Michael Carlson: 5-7, 6-0, 1-0 (10-4)
No. 4 -- Nadeem Kassam (Whitman) def. Scott Bourne: 6-2, 6-1
No. 5 -- Dan Wilson (Whitman) def. Colin Storm: 6-2, 6-1
No. 6 -- Jake Cappel (Whitman) def. Austin Abelar: 6-0, 6-2