End of the year rafting/camping trip

Talk about a whirlwind week! After returning from St. Louis there was only a day left in the final exam period so many players were busy taking exams and wrapping up the school year. The period between the end of finals and graduation is nicknamed "Camp Whitman" because the campus is alive with activity but no classes/homework/tests. Just a few days of hanging out with good friends before the summer. I decided to take "Camp Whitman" a step further and took members of both tennis teams on an overnight rafting trip down the Wallowa and Grande Ronde Rivers.

Big thanks to Minam Raft Rentals for providing us the rafts. As usual their service was awesome -- we showed up at their shop Thursday afternoon and the rafts were waiting for us to load. Let me say the Grande Ronde river was running hard which created some issues (more on this later). A couple weeks ago the river was running was at 5.5k CFS (cubic feet per second) but during our trip the river was almost 13k! In fact the towns of Elgin and Troy were experiencing some minor flooding.

We had a great float Thursday. Weather was near 70 and the high water flow created some fun rapids. About 6pm it was time to get off the water and set up camp. With the high water flows it takes some planning and hard rowing to beach a raft. I along with two other rafts managed to pull out at one of the best camp spots in the canyon section. However one raft (ET, Steven, and Jake) wasn't paying attention and overshot the take out. Since there is no going upstream we reloaded and chased the wayward boaters down the river. Once we all grouped up I talked about the importance of proper planning and rowing to get the rafts ashore in the high water. Once again I took the lead to scout for good camp spots. At another wonderful looking spot I and two boats pulled off only to see the ET/Jake/Steven raft miss the take out! Let's just say it took a total of four take out attempts (and a new rower in the ET/Jake/Steven raft) before we managed to get everyone ashore.

Even though our take out was later than originally planned we managed to have a wonderful meal of steak and chicken fajitas, dutch oven rice and a special pot of dutch oven beans. Was quite the evening of cooking -- I had two two-burner stoves and two dutch ovens cooking at the same time!

With the sound of rushing water outside the tents most everyone had a great night sleep (Jake and ET didn't bring sleeping bags so their sleep wasn't so great). Friday was pretty uneventful: two dutch oven breakfast meals, pack up camp, load up rafts and float the final stretch to our final take out.

Certainly a fun way to wrap up the year. Here is a link to pictures from the trip.

Season Ends in ST Louis

All good things must come to end and unfortunately for us it ended a bit too early. On Saturday we were defeated by a very competitive UW - Whitewater team 5-2. We knew going into the match we were going to have a tough match. Unfortunately the match was a bit too competitive and the Whitewater team took an early lead and never looked back.

Over the weekend the weather in St Louis was cold and rainy forcing indoor play. Even though we have plenty of experience playing indoors, I think the move was more a benefit to the big serving Whitewater team. In doubles they were able to control the momentum of the matches with big serves and returns. At #1 doubles Andrew/Conor lost to one of the top teams in the central region 8-5. As a side note the Whitewater duo will be playing in the NCAA doubles championship next week. At #2 doubles ET/Jeff played their usual solid doubles to tie the match at 1-1. At #3 doubles we were broke in the 3rd game of the match and the Whitewater team served their way to an 8-6 win (they were never broken).

Going into singles we were down 1-2 but still full of confidence. The previous weekend we were down 1-2 against LCSC and managed to come back and win 5 of the singles.

In singles we had a great team battle. Early on each team raced out to a lead in 3 of the singles. Whitewater won the 1st sets at #1, #4, and #5 while we won the 1st set at #2, #3, and #6. Unfortunately this really backed us into a corner knowing we needed to take 4 of the singles to win the match. Whitewater got on the singles board first winning at #1 and #4 putting them up 4-1. At #6 Adriel got us back into the match with a 6-0, 6-4 win. While ET was close to a victory (6-3, 5-4), Whitewater took #5 singles off a ball that hit the net cord and dribbled over for a winner. Tough way to lose an individual and team match -- dribbling ball off the net cord.

Such a tough ending for our season. We went into the match prepared but didn't play our best tennis. One thing I really appreciated during the match was how hard everyone competed. Everyone put forth an amazing effort. The Whitewater team simply played better tennis and had just enough to gain the victory.

Even in defeat the weekend was a great finish to our season. We earned a trip to ST Louis as the #2 seed in the Midwest bracket (Whitewater was the #3 seed). We had a great time being together and had time to reflect on the amazing journey we had all been apart of. The negative part of the trip (besides the loss) was it took place right in the middle of finals week. Everyone was busy studying and taking tests.

The trip was a great learning experience for the team. Even though we lose three important members of the team to graduation (Chris, Etienne and Quin) we are already thinking about what we need to do to get ready for next season. Even after a long season our eyes are now turned to training over the summer and getting ready for the fall season.

At the NCAA's

We have arrived at ST Louis and are getting ready for our round of 32 match against UW Whitewater. We had the opportunity to watch Whitewater play today (they won 5-1) and we are in for a battle! Looks like UW-W plays good doubles and is solid through their line-up.

Our match tomorrow is scheduled for 2pm. However there is a good chance for rain and if we get rained out the match will be at 5pm at a nearby club.

I won't be provided twitter feeds during the match but WU-STL has a tournament page that provides live scores.

http://bearsports.wustl.edu/Sports/Content/Pages/2011NCAAMensTennis.aspx

Wish us good luck!

Whitties headed to St Louis!

Just got word we are being sent to St Louis for the first round of the NCAA's. We will be the #2 seeds in that bracket and play the winner of Wisc Whitewater and Westminster. Needless to say we are very thrilled to be out of the CA region.

More later...

Great come behind victory on Mother's Day

This year I tweaked our schedule a bit and scheduled the always tough LCSC Warriors the weekend before the NCAA's. The NWC conference tournament is one of the earliest in DIII and the past few years I felt the 4-week break hurt us in the NCAA's.

After the conference tournament this year we upped our playing intensity and training. Its been a grueling three-week stretch but the extra playing and training should get us ready for the NCAA's. Unfortunately finals start this week so the guys have been doing double duty -- training hard and studying hard.

Our hard work paid off in a big way today as we knocked off LCSC (#19 in NAIA) 6-3. One of our first matches this year was in Lewiston against the Warriors and they thumped us 6-3. In that match they swept the doubles and grabbed 4, 5, and 6 singles in straight sets. Our only victories in that meeting were hard fought three-set victories at #1, #2, and #3.

Today we started off a bit better in doubles with Matt and Quin posting a 8-5 victory at #3. I'm really impressed with how Matt and Quin have shook off a rough spring break trip and are now playing their best doubles. Unfortunately we dropped #1 (Andrew and Conor ) 8-6 and #2 (Jeff and ET) 8-5. In both of those matches we were up breaks but LCSC upped their games to come behind to claim both matches.

After the doubles I was a bit worried about our energy level. Everyone looked tired -- not physically tired but mentally drained. Even though we faired better in doubles that our first meeting we were still down 1-2 and facing a very talented group of singles players. LCSC top six are all international players who grew up playing on slower clay courts. Typically when we have beaten LCSC we have been up after the doubles.

Mother's day was especially kind to us as we took 5 of the 6 singles. Even more impressive is we managed to take the 5 singles without our standout #4 player Jeff Tolman (Jeff has been battling a sore hand since conference and we hope to have him back for nationals). This is really one of our best matches of the year -- in fact I feel we are playing better than when we took down #9 Trinity 5-4. Great effort, and emotional lift, for us to come back from 1-2 after doubles to take 5 of the singles. Even more gratifying since earlier in the year we lost to LCSC 3-6.

Again great effort from the entire team. And not just for this match but a great effort the past three weeks. We are all excited and ready for the NCAA's this weekend. The NCAA committee will announce the draw and locations tomorrow afternoon.

Whitman 6 LCSC 3

Doubles

1. Andrew/Conor lost Ivan Krijanto/Benjamin Robert

2. ET/Jeff lost Oliver Sindayigaya/Viktor Svoboda

3. Quin/Matt won Cesar Uauy/Lincoln Gay

Singles

1. Conor lost Krijanto 6-4, 6-4

2. Andrew def Anders Tischer 6-3, 6-2

3. ET def Uauy 6-3, 6-4

4. Sam def Sindayigaya 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (5)

5. Quin def Svoboda 6-4, 6-4

6. Adriel def Robert 4-6, 6-1, 6-3

order of finish 2, 1, 5, 3, 6, 4

Happy Mother's Day to all Whitman moms!