Tough Tennis at the USTA/ITA Small College Nationals

It has been a couple of days now since day one of the fall USTA/ITA small college national championships.  This year, our twins from Texas Morgan and Courtney dominated the fall regional in doubles and Courtney repeated as singles champ.  So, it was off to Florida to fight for a spot in the rest of the weeks action.

And, a fight it was, as the singles play in match featured last years #25 and #26 nationally ranked players, with the winner entering the main draw as the #3 seed.  After a shaky first game, Texas Lutheran's Sofia Vega settled down and battled through some long games to a 6-1 first set as Courtney tried to find her strokes.  Our brave Whittie showed signs of her normal play midway through the set, but still had trouble finishing off points as consistently as she usually does.  This was not the opponent to be off at all against as evidence by the score.  The second set had Courtney resolved to dig in and fight and these two battled in what was one of the longest, most physical sets I've seen.  After a close start, Sofia looked like she might take the match in straight sets going up 5-3, but Courtney stepped up her first serves and backed them up with more free flowing aggressive tennis while maintaining all the tough defense needed to not give away free points.  Suddenly it was 5-5 and another great service game put her up 6-5 before she broke to force a third set.  Something in the third fell off ever so slightly and Sofia again took advantage winning almost all of the close games en route to a 6-1 third set. The match took a full three hours in 89 degree heat and humidity.   The heat rule would have kicked in at 90 degrees to give them a 10 minute break between sets, but neither player asked for it and they soldiered on and displayed their fitness and mental stamina.

Courtney, however had to come back and play in one hour for doubles with Morgan against a very talented UT Dallas duo.  Showing no effects of the marathon singles match, we jumped out to a quick start, being aggressive during a great first set which we would have run away with if not for UTD tightening up their game and making it close; still a 6-4 first set had us close.  The second set was back and forth with UTD taking advantage of a bit of first set hangover from us, getting an early break to lead 2-0.  Jumping right back in we broke back to tie it at 2-2, but then a close game to go up 3-2 gave UTD confidence and they took another break to lead 5-2 and win the set 6-2.  We made some good plays early to 3-3 in the match tie break with both Courtney and Morgan displaying tremendous net play.  Some huge plays by UTD and a couple loose points from us put Dallas up 7-3 and then I have seen some terrific efforts, but as UTD played better and better, the twins willed themselves through sheer determination back into the match, closing to 6-7 before finally falling 7-10.

It was a tough end to come up short on two matches where we played well and competed with so much heart, but in the end it just wasn't our best tennis at the right times and with the quality of opponent across the net, nothing was going to be easy.  We enjoyed a couple of days watching the main draw between studying and it was especially cool to cheer on our men's doubles duo of James and Andrew to the national finals where the dropped a tough match to my college coach and his new team at Middlebury.

All four Whitties represented our teams, Whitman and the Northwest with great pride and determination and I'm so proud of them.  As we travel home for a much needed 4 day weekend to catch up, we are thankful to have had the opportunity to compete nationally and I am especially proud of Morgan who rehabbed her back enough to play doubles and she showed she belongs on the national stage, so I can't wait until Spring. 

Our next competition will be in late January in Hawaii as the team travels to train, bond and compete in matches vs BYU Hawaii, Chaminade, and for a top 25 showdown with West region #1 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.

Special thanks to C-Patt for planning her college tennis reunion in Florida (we got lucky on that one), so she was able to stay and be at the matches and also to Sandy Seaman for coming out for the tournament and taking some wonderful photos which you can view here on our flickr site.

Best regards to all from a proud proud coaching staff.