Two more wins during Spring Break!

Earlier today we split the Whitman horde into two teams to take on Pacific and George Fox. Both matches took place at 9am -- I had the Pacific group and Coach Ann had the George Fox group.

Against Pacific we came out with good energy and were able to quickly capture all three doubles matches. The #1 combo of Christoph and Quin struggled a bit in the early going of their match. I felt like they were playing well and getting the opportunity to finish points but just couldn't win the big points. After going down 1-3 they won 7 straight games for an 8-3 victory.

In singles play the closest match of the day was at #5 where Justin Hayashi defeated Nhat Nguyen 6-4, 6-3. Christoph and Quin continued their strong play in singles with Quin winning 6-0, 6-1 and Christoph winning 8-1 (shortened match due to time).

Whitman 9 Pacific 0

Against George Fox the highlight of the day was Thomas Roston's thrilling victory at #4 singles. Normally a 6-0, 6-0 isn't thrilling but Thomas was up 6-0, 3-0 before he lost a point! Wow what a great effort (for the record he lost 2 points the entire match).

Also of note Jake and Adriel both won their matches in 3rd set super-breakers! Outside of #1 and #2 singles all the matches had at least one 6-0 set! Perhaps it is the coaching! Kudo's to Coach Ann:)

Whitman 9 George Fox 0

We are currently 10-0 in conference play and 11-2 overall. In the latest rankings that were released earlier today we slipped two spots to #21 (even though we have yet to lose a DIII match) and are #5 in the West region.


Match changes!
Wednesday's match against Willamette has been moved to 11am at the Courthouse Tennis Center

Thursday's match against Linfield moved to 10am at the Courthouse Tennis Center in Salem!

Match changes

Because of weather and lack of available indoor courts several upcoming matches have been rescheduled.

Monday vs PLU reschedule to April 11 11am in Tacoma
Tuesdays matches vs George Fox and Pacific changed to:
9am vs Pacific* at Tualatin Hills
9am vs George Fox* at Lewis Clark College Tennis Bubble
*We will be breaking into two teams to take on G Fox and Pacific.

Hope to see you at the courts!

Spring is the air!

It is spring break for the Fighting Squirrels! Classes are done for two weeks and the players get to take a break from the books and focus on tennis. This year we are doing something a bit unique and playing our away conference matches during the first week of break and the second week we are heading to Hilton Head, SC to play some of the top NCAA III teams in the nation.

Yesterday we had a home match against short-handed Lewis and Clark College. Unfortunately for the Pioneers they were missing a player and had to default #6 singles and #3 doubles. Highlight of the day was the return of junior Nadeem Kassam to the line-up. Nadeem has been out for a month with a shoulder injury and Friday the 13th marked his return to competition. I know for most people Friday the 13th is considered a day of bad luck. However for us it marked the glorious return of Nadeem to our line-up. Against LC, Nadeem had the opportunity to play one of the top players in the conference (Vincent Groot). In fact Groot only has one NCAA III loss all year -- that being a three set loss to PLU's outstanding #1 player. Nadeem not only played beautiful tennis but he played with an incredible sense of passion. Being out the past month has made Nadeem hungry to play again. Against LC, Nadeem was unstoppable winning 6-2, 6-3.

Kudos to the rest of the team who shook off a hard week of school and were able to close out the LC 9-0 without dropping a set.

Whitman 9 LC 0

Earlier today we took on a determined Willamette squad. Willamette is a talented squad and has players in various positions that can play with any team in the conference. They have also been rock solid in doubles.

Even though I knew this would be a close match I decided to mix and match the line-up. I know I have mentioned this before but we are fortunate to have an incredibly deep and talented line-up. This is great not only in practices (which are a joy to watch and run) but in matches we have a horde of hungry guys chomping at the bit to play.

We started off with high energy doubles. At #3 Nadeem and Chris picked up where they left off on Friday winning 8-0. In the last two matches Nadeem and Chris have won two matches 8-0! In the world of men's doubles that is no easy feat! At #2 Justin and Dan were down an early break 2-4 but rallied to win 8-6. At #1 doubles Christoph and Quin played their best (and smartest) doubles of the year winning 8-5.

At #1 singles Chris Bailey played aggressive, strong tennis defeating Willamette's Cody Ferguson 6-1, 6-2. Even though Chris had a convincing win it was a pleasure to watch Ferguson play. Cody is a new transfer to the Willamette program and he showed why he is one of the top players in the conference.

One of the more entertaining sets of the day was at #2 where Dan Wilson won a very competitive 1st set 7-6 (8-6). I have to hand it to Dan, he has an amazing court presence. No matter the situation he works incredibly hard and always has a positive aura. About the only way I can tell that Dan is in a tight match is how hard he hits the ball. The closer the situation the bigger he hits. Dan ended up winning 7-6, 6-2.

The most competitive match of the day was Jake at #3. Last week Jake didn't have the greatest court composure and it cost him against Linfield. One of Jake's goals for this match (and our trip) is to improve upon his attitude on court. Today Jake was a brilliant leader for our team. After losing the 1st set 3-6 he continued to work hard but more importantly his aura was positive. Not only did he shake off the great play of his opponent but he showed great leadership supporting all his teammates. In the end Jake posted a solid 3-6, 6-3 6-1 victory. This is one of those matches that made me proud to be a coach. It is so gratifying to see the maturity and growth of players. Today Jake was a true team leader.

At #4 Adriel felt he didn't play his best. However its hard to find fault in a 6-0, 6-0 victory! At #5 Jasper played a very talented and experienced Willamette player. In fact last year this player played #2 -- infront of Willamette's current #1, #2 and #3 players! Jasper was able to cruise to a 7-6, 6-2 victory. At #6 Christoph won 6-3, 6-4. I've been working with Christoph the past week on some changes to his game and it was nice to see him utilize some new tools.

Great start to our break the past couple days. Two matches and two 9-0 victories. More importantly we are playing with a renewed sense of purpose!

Whitman 9 Willamette 0

ET is NWC Player of the Week!

Congratulations to Etienne Moshevich who was name Northwest Conference tennis player of the week!

Ugly win for the Whitties

Ick! I feel like just kissed my sister (no offense Patsy)! Last night we managed to pull off a 5-4 victory over Linfield but it left us with a bad taste. We had a golden opportunity to put our stamp on the conference. A good win over Linfield would not only places us uptop the conference standings but could give us momentum heading into a long 2 week spring break trip. 

In doubles we started very strong at #2 and #3. At #2 ET and Jake broke early and never looked back for a quick 8-1 victory. At #3 Justin and Dan jumped on a good Linfield team closing out the match 8-3. At #1 Quin and Christoph always seemed on the defensive. Christoph and Quin possess two of the best serves on the team. For some reason last night they really struggled with their serves:  in fact, I'm pretty sure their 1st serve percentage was under 30% for the match. To their credit they kept digging themselves out of holes and broke Linfield at 5-7 putting the match back on serve. However Linfield was able to break to finish out the match 8-6.

In singles we started with #1 ET, #2 Chris, #3 Jake and #4 Dan (we have 4 indoor courts). Early in the match things we were on cruise control and we were steaming ahead. In all 4 matches we broke early and had command of all the matches. Someplace along the line our cruise control broke down and we started struggling. Jake was up 3-0 in the 1st and then went down 4-6, 0-5. Dan won the first but quickly when down 0-4 in the 2nd. While Jake and Dan were struggling, ET and Chris were able to put the hammer down both winning in straight sets. 

With ET and Chris's victory we were able to take a 4-1 lead. Jake mounted a mini-rally at 0-5 but ended up dropping his match 4-6, 2-4. Match score now 4-2 with Dan starting his 3rd set and #5 (Quin) and #6 (Christoph) taking the courts. With Dan locked in a major battle, both Quin and Christoph won their 1st sets 6-1. At this point the team match looked like a lock since we only need to win 1 more set to clinch the team match. Dan ended up breaking serve at 4-4 and managed to serve out the match despite the Linfield opponent fighting off 3 match points. We now have the team match in hand 5-2 and up a set and a break at #5 and #6. However once Dan clinched the team match the air went out of our sails and we ended up dropping up 5 and 6 in 3rd set match tiebreaks.

Hats off to a very tough and competitive Linfield team. They came into our place and battled tooth and nail the entire match. As I told the team in our pre-match meeting is I look forward to playing Linfield because they are always fired up and will keep coming after you no matter the score. Coach Swanson does a great job getting his players ready to play.

Even though we ended up with a 5-4 victory we all felt horrible about the way the match played out. We had a very long, and incredibly positive, team meeting after the match. Hopefully this experience help our team develop as we head into spring break. 

Whitman 5 Linfield 4

Weekend results for the Whitties

What a fun weekend of tennis for the Whitties. Sunday we had the wonderful opportunity to split the team into two and play DI Montana (at home) and conference opponent UPS (in Tacoma). Since I was in Tacoma I can't write too much about the Montana match. From text messages and calls it appears that Etienne had the match of the day defeating Montana's #1 (a senior from Poland) 13-11 in the 3rd set super-breaker. At #3 Jake had a good effort winning the first set 6-2 before dropping the next two 6-3, 6-3. We also picked up a 9-7 win at #3 doubles (Dan and Justin) that doesn't count on the official team score since we played the 7 point DI format.

Whitman 1 Montana 6

While team 1 was battling the all-international Grizzly team, team 2 ran into a fired up UPS team. With our top 8 players in Walla Walla this was a major opportunity for UPS to knock us out of the top spot in the conference (we are currently tied with Linfield). I must say that things looked bleak in doubles. We were down breaks at #1 and #3 doubles but up a break at #2. As the doubles wound down I was prepared to go into singles down 1-2. However at 4-6 down Jasper and Adriel (#1 doubles) played inspired doubles -- closing hard, crossing and nailing returns winning the last 4 games for a hard fought 8-6 victory. The #2 doubles team of Thomas and Conor got an early break and never looked back scoring an 8-5 victory. Unfortunately the #3 doubles team of David and Reid never got on track losing 8-6.

One thing that I absolutely loved the team that played UPS is that they never "panicked". Losing this match not only would of knocked us out of first place in the conference standings, but would of nailed our national ranking and ended our conference winning streak. Plus we had two freshman playing #1 (Adriel) and #2 (Conor) in their first big team match.  

In fact early in the singles things didn't look promising: at #5 Thomas was down 1-5, at #2 Conor was down 1-4, and at #3 David was down 0-3. At 2-5 I scrambled down to talk to Thomas and he told me not to worry,  although he wasn't playing well he was going to win the match. Even though he was down 2-5 he had that champion look in his eye and I knew he would be ok. At 1-4 Conor and I had a great chat and I've never seen a more dramatic turn around in my years coaching. He went from trying to end the point early in rallies to taking his time, pounding the ball deep and forcing his opponent to miss. From 1-4 down Conor raced to a 7-5, 5-2 lead! If he can keep this type of  composure on court he will be a force to be reckoned with! Speaking of composure I can't say enough about Adriel. This young man wise beyond his years! I've been calling Adriel "Yoda" for a few weeks now..he certainly lived up to that billing on Sunday beating a good NWC 1st Team All-Conference player 6-3, 6-2. 

David and Jasper also had great comebacks over the weekend. Jasper was down 2-5 in the 2nd and rallied to close out his match in a tie-breaker. David came from a set down to post a 4-6, 6-4, 10-8 victory at #3 singles.

Our lone senior on the trip (Reid) posted a 6-2, 6-4 victory at #6. I know this was especially sweet for Reid since his parents made the trip up from Olympia to watch him play. By the way the cookies were awesome! :)

Whitman 8 UPS 1

We have a big show down with Linfield on Friday. Both teams are currently undefeated in conference play. If you are in Walla Walla on Friday I hope to see you at the courts at 4pm!

Jeff

Getting Ready For The Weekend

The Fighting Squirrels of Whitman College (aka the Men's tennis team) is getting ready for a weekend of interesting and intense play. On Sunday we take on University of Montana at 10am at home (Bratton Tennis Center). Its not often that a DI come through town and we are looking forward to playing the Grizz. Hopefully the Squirrels can out scamper and outhustle the powerful Grizzlies! Also on Sunday at 10am we will be playing conference opponent UPS at UPS. 

For those keeping track that is two matches at the same time at different locations! Coach Ann will be working with one group of guys at home and I'll be taking another group to Tacoma. I'm nervous about playing two good teams at the same time. However it will be a great challenge for our team and everyone will get to play meaningful matches.

Last weekend we had a similiar split squad stragety against George Fox and Pacific. The Squirrels really stepped up to the plate defeating both George Fox and Pacific 9-0. Click the links below for match scores.

Whitman 9 George Fox 0

Whitman 9 Pacific 0