Team Squirrel tries out for the team.

Some video footage of Team Squirrel trying to make the Whitman tennis team.

Stay tuned for more adventurers of Team Squirrel!

On the road

Talk about great timing -- Whitman's Oct break is the same week as the ITA Small College National Championships. This not only means the players traveling don't miss a week of school but also that we can leave a bit early to prepare for the upcoming tournament. Yesterday (Monday) we left Seattle in the afternoon and flew into New Orleans in the late evening. Even with a 90 minute flight delay we made into New Orleans before midnight. This morning we woke up to adjust to the time change and will be hitting the road for the drive to Mobile.

The ITA Tournament starts on Wednesday for the champions of the PNW and Texas regionals. Andrew has a play-in match against the #4 player in the nation Max Frey of Trinity. After that match Conor and Matt take on Frey and his partner. Going to be a tough set of matches as the Trinity players are very good. Its kind of strange but for each of the past 6 years it has been a Whitman/Trinity match at the ITA play in (5 of 6 years in doubles). After playing Trinity last spring and matching up at the ITA national tournament during the fall both teams are used to seeing each other across the net.

I will try to provide Twitter updates during the matches tomorrow.

Big thanks to the La Cava family for their hospitality during our hold over in Seattle.

A Camping We Shall Go..

It is that time of the year for one of the team's more valued traditions -- our annual camping trip. I started this event a few years ago to share my love of the outdoors with my team. In doing so, everyone on the team has  realized what a great opportunity the trip is get to know each other and hang out without the distractions of cell phones, computers, TV, etc.

In past years we have gone on a decent backpacking trip into a wilderness area for our overnight. This year everyone was so pressed for time we decided a car camping trip would be the way to go. I'm pretty familiar with the Blue Mountains outside of Walla Walla and thought Mottet campground would be an ideal spot. Its only about an hour drive (probably only 20 miles as the crow flies) from campus, pretty easy to get to, had running water, and would probably be empty.

We arrived at the campground about 2pm Saturday and sure enough the campground was basically empty and we our choice of places to throw our tents. Once the tents were set up the guys hiked down the rough fork trail to the head waters of the South Fork of the Walla Walla. It's about 4 miles hike (each way) into a pretty steep canyon. While the team was hiking my daughter Anna (8 years old) and myself set up our camp and started cooking dinner. For dinner I prepared a think, hearty, three bean chili in my large dutch oven. After 3 hours of simmering in the cast iron dinner I used a smaller dutch oven to make fresh corn bread. Honestly the chili and cornbread turned out better than I could have hoped -- actually I'm always a bit surprised when I cook something that turns out well!

The chili was a perfect choice for dinner as the temp. really dropped and it got a bit chilly once the sun went down. Certainly the coldest evening I have had in a while and I would venture it dropped into the high 30's that night.

Once the chili was all but destroyed (I'm always surprised by how much college guys can eat) it was time for S'mores! Nothing like a hot fire roasted marshmallow and chocolate to wrap up a dinner. My daughter was heaven - not only was she camping with dad, hanging with the tennis team (2 of her favorite things to do) but she got to stuff herself with S'mores! After chatting around the fire for a couple hours everyone turned in about 9pm. 

In the morning I fired up coals to make dutch oven for a breakfast that included 36 eggs, sausage, bacon, ham, potatoes, green onions, onions and mushrooms -- I actually used 2 ovens to make one breakfast without pork. Unfortunately we couldn't stay around the camp for too long since people had to return to campus and the reality of being a student.

Pictures of the trip can be found on my flickr page.

Team vs Food

Last week the team had the unique opportunity to try our version of man vs food. After the 2nd day of the USTA/ITA we headed out with several parents to the Oasis steakhouse for a late evening dinner. I must admit the staff at the Oasis treated us like kings -- amazing food, service and atmosphere.


The Oasis has an interesting challenge -- eat their 72 ounce steak, potato, and veggies and the meal is free. Plus you get your picture added to the Wall of Fame. We should of known the challenge was nearly impossible as only 1 person has EVER completed the challenge! Not to be deterred a few brave Whitties tried the 72 ounce challenge. No one really came close to finishing the steak but they gave it the old college try.

I have to say in all my years coaching college tennis this has to be the most unique and interesting team dinner I have EVER seen! Here is the link to the pictures.

Papa Roston thanks for the amazing dinner!

USTA/ITA Wrap up

*Disclaimer - the posts, stories, videos, pictures, themes, links, electronic media and other forms of communication contained within this blog do not represent the views of Whitman College or the Whitman College Administration. This blog is not hosted nor stored on any college server*


Amazing final day of the USTA/ITA tournament at Whitman. I hosted regional tournament as a Sat-Mon event so no players miss Friday classes and only a few miss class on Monday. It was pretty cool playing matches on Monday -- even though the tournament was all Whitman people would stop and watch between classes and as they walked to and from the library. It really is one of the special parts about Whitman tennis -- our courts are situated smack dab in the middle of campus.


The day started with #2 seed Andrew La Cava taking on Sam Sadeghi and #1 seed Conor Holton battling Jeff Tolman. Both were great matches and highly competitive. Andrew got by Sam with a break in each set 6-3, 6-4. Meanwhile Conor and Jeff had a wonderful match with each set decided by a late break. Conor squeaked by with a 7-5, 6-4 victory.


The finals between Andrew and Conor was an epic match. Perhaps one of the better singles matches I have seen on the Whitman courts. In fact long time Whitman tennis fan Martin McCaw wrote me an email saying the Andrew vs Conor match was the best match he had ever seen at the Whitman courts! When the dust settled Andrew defeated 7-6 in the 3rd 9-7 in the tiebreak.  Our amazing SID Dave Holden was a the courts and provide this write up.

 Two Whitman College tennis heavyweights, Andrew La Cava andConor Holton-Burke, went toe to toe for what seemed like 15 rounds in Monday's singles final of the USTA/ITA Pacific Northwest Fall Championships on Whitman's outdoor courts.

Andrew La Cava

Conor Holton-Burke

Both players were still standing at the end of three-hour title bout, even though both had landed and absorbed any number of feathery jabs and hard right hands.

Once the final bell sounded and the score cards were totaled, it was La Cava leaving the ring with an epic 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (9-7) split-decision triumph.

Few points came easy in the slugfest, but La Cava needed one last remarkable flurry of punches to claim his crown.

After holding serve to even the third set at 6-6, La Cava quickly found himself on the wrong end of 5-1 and 6-2 counts in the tie-breaker.

But the crafty sophomore fought off four match points to the square the breaker at 6-6 and then added a fifth straight point to lead 7-6 and earn a match point of his own.

Holton-Burke, a rangy senior and the defending Northwest Conference (NWC) Player of the Year, picked off the next point to send the match back to deuce, only to see La Cava finish the marathon with the next two points.

In winning the regional singles title for a second straight year, La Cava used a service break to break free from a 5-5 deadlock in the first set. He then held serve to take the set at 7-5.

Holton-Burke bounced back to pocket a back-and-forth second set, breaking La Cava at 5-4 to win 6-4.

The deciding third set stayed on serve until La Cava broke Holton-Burke for a 5-4 lead. Holton-Burke broke right back, and both players held serve one more time to reach a 6-6 stalemate and set the stage for the climactic tie-breaker.

But the day was far from over for the two players. After a 90 min break both players returned with their partners for the doubles finals. If the singles final was epic I honestly don't know what to call the doubles final. This match also went the distance with Conor and Matt Tesmond winning 7-6 (12-10). Because of the length of the singles semi and finals this match started at 6pm and finished at 8pm under the lights. The match was so intense and the quality of play so high people started coming out of the library to watch the final set! 

Again here is Dave Holden's words about the doubles:

It took two hours for the doubles dust to settle, but Holton-Burke and doubles partner Matt Tesmond finally donned the doubles crown with a 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (12-10) victory over La Cava and his partner, Jeff Tolman.

The third set in particular was a sight to behold as neither side was able to break serve on the other, although they certainly gave it the good ol' college try.

With the third set even at two games apiece, Holton-Burke held serve on a game that needed two dozen points to decide.

Later in the third, with Holton-Burke and Tesmond leading 6-5, La Cava found a way to hold serve as he and Tolman staved off a match point to get the game back to deuce.

A few points later, La Cava reached into his bag of tricks for a semi-miraculous return to even the set at 6-6 and send the match to a first-to-seven tie-breaker.

While La Cava's match-extending return was a thing of beauty, it seemed to set the standard for a tie-breaker that featured more than just a few eye-popping returns.

After Tolman and La Cava jumped in front 4-3 in the breaker, Tesmond and Holton-Burke responded with three straight points to earn another match point at 6-4.

But the pendulum continued to swing and Tolman's stellar return made it 6-all. From there, the two sides swapped four more match points as the score deadlocked on points seven, eight, nine and 10.

The tie at ten proved to be last, however, as Holton-Burke and Tesmond strung together the next two points to claim the trophy.

Absolutely an amazing day of tennis. Funny emotions with the matches. While the tennis was electrify I was a bit depressed/sad at the end of the day that someone had to lose. The matches were of such a high quality and the matches so physical that it was a shame all couldn't share the winner's spotlight.

Day 2 of the USTA/ITA's

*Disclaimer - the posts, stories, videos, pictures, themes, links, electronic media and other forms of communication contained within this blog do not represent the views of Whitman College or the Whitman College Administration. This blog is not hosted nor stored on any college server*

Tennis fans sorry about the disclaimer but I have been advised to put some sort of disclaimer at the start of posts. Perhaps more on this later but for the moment suffice it to say that I have been asked to censor all my publications (including electronic).

It is actually day 3 of the USTA/ITA but once again a late evening (more on this later) prevented me from doing a write up of yesterday's action. We entered day 2 of the tournament with 10 players into the round of 16. We had some tough match ups but managed to get 7 into the round of 8. Steven Roston had one of the best wins of the day defeating #4 seed and last year's single finalist Cody Ferguson. One of the more entertaining (and draining matches) was Adriel Borshansky vs James Rivers. These two had an amazing 2.5 hour match with James ended up getting the better of his teammate 7-5, 7-5. Other all Whitman match up's included Sam Sadeghi taking out Will Huskey and Steven Roston. Andrew La Cava took out freshman Colton Malesovas and Jeff Tolman took out James Rivers.

Match of the day was Conor vs George Fox transfer Shawn Aldrich. Its a blast playing the Fox guys they are always incredibly fired up. From our point of view its awesome to be playing such a team -- it makes us better team/players and prepares us when we play on the road. It took Conor 3 sets be he showed a lot of maturity winning 6-1, 1-6, 6-3.

We also had great luck in the doubles. We managed to get 5 of the final 8 spots. Unfortunately for Will/Adriel they had to play #1 seeds Jeff/Andrew in the round of 8. Will/Adriel lost 8-3 but played great and both had a wonderful tournament. Conor and Matt took down the #1 team from Linfield (and #7 seeds) 8-3. Meanwhile James/Sam and Colton/Steven took out the only remaining non-Whitman teams (both from George Fox). In the semi-finals Jeff/Andrew got the better of Sam/James and Matt/Conor defeated Colton/Steven.

Singles semifinals are just about to get underway -- Jeff vs Conor and Sam vs Andrew. I will try to provide a twitter stream.

Sorry for typos or grammar errors in this post -- with matches starting I don't have time to do a proof.

Day 1 of the USTA/ITA

Man what a great first day of the USTA/ITA Regional Tournament. Unfortunately its getting late and I had a very early day setting up for the tournament. It is certainly a blast for the guys to be playing at home (especially on a day when the temp hit 90) but it makes for a long day for the tournament director!

Let me say it today was a wonderful start to the season for the Whitties. We had 12 players in entered in the singles day and we managed to get 10 through to the round of 16. Nasko dropped a tough match to a seeded player in the first round but he had some moments of great tennis -- in fact he had several opportunities to take a 3-0 lead in the second and couldn't quite get it done. Transfer Dylan Bodet had a great day of tennis playing well and bombing some serves. He won his first match in straight sets before dropping a close three set match to a seeded player.

Some highlights from the day.

• Sophomores Will Huskey and Steve Roston showed great character and intensity taking down seeded players. Will knocked off the #7 seed 6-1, 4-6 10-7 and Steven knocked off the #13 seed and #2 player from Pacific 7-5, 6-4. Andrew La Cava (#2 seed) rolled through his first two matches 6-1, 6-0 and 6-0, 6-0
• The Freshman came up big today! James Rivers took down the #3 seed 6-1, 6-0 and Colton Malesovas defeated the #8 seed 6-3, 6-2
• Not to be outdone the Juniors also posted a strong day. Jeff Tolman #6 seed advanced with a pair of straight set wins (6-2, 7-6 and 6-0, 6-3). Sam Sadeghi (#13 seed) rolled to a pair of straight set wins and Matt Tesmond knocked off the #5 seed 10-8 in a 3rd set match breaker.
• The two seniors also advanced to the second day -- #1 seed Conor Holton Burke won 6-0, 6-0 and 6-2, 6-1 and Adriel Borshansky won 6-1, 6-2, and 6-3, 6-1

In doubles everything went our way. We have the #1 seeds Jeff Tolman/Andrew La Cava who only dropped 2 games in 2 matches. And #2 seeds Conor Holton-Burke/Matt Tesmond won 8-5 and 8-1.

Colton and Steven continued their strong play winning 2 matches including defeating the #3 seeds 8-4. Adriel and Will took down the #5 seeds in the 1st round 8-4 and then won their second match 8-3. Sam and James completed a wonderful evening taking down the #4 seeds 8-2 and then coming back from 1-4 down to win their second match 8-4. Great doubles for the Whitties -- we took down the #3, #4 and #5 seeds and placed 5 teams into the round of 8. Our only loss was Nasko and Dylan and dropped a close 8-6 match to the #7 seeds.

Tomorrow matches start at 10am with the main draw on the outdoor courts and the backdraw on the indoor courts.

Remember my friends fun and go nuts!

Singles Draw

Doubles Draw

PS Sorry about not returning text messages and stopping the twitter feed..my phone battery died!