Tuesday, January 27, 2015

2015 Season Preview

Dear followers, fans and families,

After a fall away from the blog using my email list (email me at heinj@whitman to be added for updates including new blog posts), I'm getting back to the blog as a way to share weekly - if not more often what we're up to here in Walla Walla.

After one of the most fun and successful seasons in program history, it's safe to say that what we have now is a "program".  As a team, we continue to build on our strengths and push the envelope to find new ways to grow together as individuals and a team.  If you got my fall emails, you know how incredibly excited I am with our new players.  Alex has made a wonderful transition from Art School in Vancouver, though moving away from such a tight family and support system at home has it's challenges.  That's what the team is all about though, channeling that love of tennis into a true family at Whitman.  Hanna, Jenna G (or Little J as we call her) and Lindsey have met every expectation I had of them (and I thought A LOT of each of them) in recruiting and are all making huge contributions daily.

In fact, the depth on our team is a fun problem to have, and it really is fun because the leadership from so many places on this team is off the charts so we're really enjoying our court time together and looking forward to competing together.  I couldn't tell you (well, I could but that might spoil the surprise, and I could be proven wrong in the next couple weeks of practice), what our lineup is because we're having the most competitive practices full of upsets, tight sets and a really high level of play coming off of the fall and a long winter break.

We're excited to welcome in fellow Slug Alum Morgan Shepherd this weekend to work with the team on honing our practice habits and then we hit the road for back to back weekends:

Feb 8th at Lewis Clark State College (Idaho) 9am
Feb 14th at Whitworth  10am
Feb 15th at Eastern Washington University  10am

Then, we have a wonderful month of home matches up to spring break with conference matches on the road after break.  We will be planning alumni/family/fan events in Tacoma and Portland so let me know if you'd like to help in the planning of that.

I feel like I'm missing tons, like our fundraising camps with Emily Rolston, our awesome Spring Break schedule in California, a stellar academic fall for the team.....I'll have to do more posts and if you're not already, I encourage you to get involved and like us on facebook for more frequent updates, photos, videos and also so you can all interact.

For now I'll say I couldn't be more fired up for today's practice, so I'm going to go get ready and I wish you all the best in 2015.

Sincerely,
Coach John


Future Posts:
-WC Winter Classic
-Whittie of the Week Updates
-2015 Recruiting Commitments - meet our incoming Whitties