Monday, February 9, 2015

Beyond the scoreline. Our first match of the season

If you read my post last week, you'll know that the team has been working really hard.  One thing about college tennis is that these players have worked so long and hard to develop tremendous skills and lots of players get better in college by putting those skills to the test each day in practice and in weekly matches.  Our team has made a greater commitment to really improve ourselves on and off the court, between points, games, sets and matches.  Growth can be painful and as a program where everyone wants to win every time we step out on the court, yesterday was a bit painful, but also really a terrific step in our growth.

So, we played the Lewis Clark State College Warriors in Lewiston, ID.  Coach Kai Fong does a tremendous job not only having a team that each year is a national contender in NAIA tennis, but he instills kindness, sportsmanship and class in his team.  Yesterday, already 4 matches into their season (against all D1 teams), the Warriors were just sharper than we were and scored an 8-1 win (results here).



We had great match preparation but are still fine tuning our doubles, getting healthier every day and experiencing some slight growing pains in expanding our games.  With all this, plus the fact that LCSC is a great team with some amazing young talent at the top of the lineup and solid depth, our showing yesterday was something we're all proud of.

I am so tempted to give a complete blow by blow of the match, but I think I'll just highlight that our effort and fight was in midseason form even though the precision on our shots looked like the first match of the year.  The scores in doubles do very little to indicate how much of a strength this is for us this year.  We have so much talent in doubles and with matches and fine tuning, it will only get better.  On that note, exhibition matches weren't on the WC website recap and at #4 doubles Seana and Lindsey fought through some early nerves and then built great momentum to take an 8-4 victory.
In Singles, there is a little more time to settle in and each player has been working on individual goals and everyone showed tremendous progress, so the task at hand is to bring it all together as we prepare to play our first NWC match Saturday at Whitworth and then we'll be at D1 Eastern WA Sunday in Cheney, WA.  Our depth also showed up in the #7 and #8 exhibition matches, they played no ad to move things along and Hanna helped out with a quick 6-0,6-3 win at #7.  With Hanna's big game every match she gets is huge in her development and she took some lessons as well as some confidence from this one.  Tree played #8 and while she is still getting back her cleanest tennis, she battled really well in a 4-6,6-4,10-7 three set loss.

Let me know if you'll be in Spokane for the battle of Whits on Saturday at 10am or Cheney on Sunday at 10am, we'd love to have support and its also great for the team to engage and spend time with our families, friends and alums!

Thanks for reading!
Coach John