Hi all,
It's great to be out in Cary, NC for DIII individual NCAA nationals. The draws are not posted that I can see, they get made here on site and came out yesterday. Today has been a practice day, we've soaked in the team finals and gotten ourselves prepared. The NCAA also does a really nice banquet for the players to honor them on making it this far. Tomorrow, its chaired matches, national caliber opponents on every court and single elimination fun.
Matches were pushed back an hour because rain today lengthened the team matches. The men start singles at 9am with Whittie Andrew LaCava taking the courts, then at 11am Alyssa and Courtney will be side by side playing singles against Williams' Kristin Alotta and Middlebury's Leah Kepping respectively. Round 2 is at 2:30pm and they play doubles against Kate Klein and Corinne Rauck from Wash U in St Louis at 5pm. We're super excited to get this thing going! We'll have tweets coming with scores and the NCAA website has live scoring and they do have 3 courts being streamed live, but our first rounds are not on those courts.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Competing at the NCAA tournament
Wow, there is so much on my mind from regionals last weekend and the upcoming singles and doubles nationals. I could write so much, but I'll leave the match recaps (which hopefully you were able to follow via twitter or the host website) to our wonderful SID Dave Holden.
On our first trip to the NCAA's as a team, we faced my alma mater and great friend in Coach Erin Ness in the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs, pulling out a 5-3 win after going down 1-2 after dubs.
Whitman defeats UCSC 5-3 - click here for story and scores
*this match is a preview of a home and home series with the Slugs in 2013. In February UCSC travels to Walla Walla for the DIII Winter Classic at Whitman and in March we'll go down to Santa Cruz on Spring Break to compete in the DIII Megabowl (an up and coming invitational that will no doubt be THE tournament to play each year).
In the regional semifinal, we faced off with #1 in the West and #9 nationally CMS. Going down 0-3 in some great doubles matches proved to be too much as the Athenas triumphed 5-0. Courtney was a couple points from putting us on the board, Morgan was rolling in her third set and Emily was up a set and on serve looking good so the match was really closer than the score indicates.
Whitman falls to CMS in regional semi 5-0 -click here for story and scores
What I'd like to share with you is a little bit of what it was like to compete at NCAA's. We often talk on our team about competition being more than the desire to win. We focus on the process of being prepared to be our best and then using all of our training to stay in the moment of the match. As a coach, I am blessed to coach 14 young women who each possess an incredible amount of heart, determination and individual competitive spirit. This makes us a very mentally tough group. What has happened this season that has been so special is that these 14 individuals have been able to simultaneously push themselves and each other as a team. There was so much learning this year of how to turn that individual dance between a singles or doubles opponent into a battle for the 5 points that it takes to win a DIII match.
In both matches at regionals I am so proud of the attitude and mental toughness of our team. Each person came away with a terrific experience to be proud of, but I don't think anyone was satisfied with not having won the event. This shows both how far we've come and what we've accomplished in this great team season as well as what we need to do to keep moving to the next level. I'm sure we will be better next year from this experience, but by no means were we "just happy to be there playing hard". I credit sports psychologist Jerry Lynch for introducing me to so many concepts of competing as a process, or a dance, where both competitors "seek together" to find their best performance. Our team this year truly competed and played our best against our toughest competition and looks forward to learning from that and being even better next year.
Of course, in flying to NCAA's there is so much more going on and while the team was so focused on their school and tennis, I can't say enough how huge the efforts were of Seth in his coaching role and Charlotte and Erin who got the experience of traveling and found ways to be huge contributors without playing. And even back home, we felt the presence of Lizzy, Hadley, Liv, Sara and Maggie as their work throughout the year and their constant support via phone and text was so huge in having a great weekend.
We'll also look back on the Family support we've had. It was amazing to see people fly to California to support us. Thanks Dena, Mark, and Sandy for coming from afar. And our SoCal fans included alums, families and friends. From Art, Johanna and even Abby P to Erin's big family and many friends made stops each day, alum Rex took the time to watch two days. We even had some future Whitman parents out cheering us on (great to see you Lori and Joel). Maddy had a host of people out there, even though her junior coach was too busy with his own tennis to come (I guess coaching 4 time defending national champion USC at their regional was a good excuse) and her parents even hosted us on our last day before coming back up, which was an amazing day in Long Beach relaxing, studying, and enjoying being together in the best family environment....I could (and maybe will) write a whole separate post about our great families and friends - which I hope I haven't left anyone out.
The team season is over but with graduation on Sunday, a host of end of season awards and still more tennis at individual nationals with Courtney and Alyssa playing singles and doubles in Cary, NC a week from today, I'm sure I'll be in touch.
Best wishes to all,
John
On our first trip to the NCAA's as a team, we faced my alma mater and great friend in Coach Erin Ness in the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs, pulling out a 5-3 win after going down 1-2 after dubs.
Whitman defeats UCSC 5-3 - click here for story and scores
*this match is a preview of a home and home series with the Slugs in 2013. In February UCSC travels to Walla Walla for the DIII Winter Classic at Whitman and in March we'll go down to Santa Cruz on Spring Break to compete in the DIII Megabowl (an up and coming invitational that will no doubt be THE tournament to play each year).
In the regional semifinal, we faced off with #1 in the West and #9 nationally CMS. Going down 0-3 in some great doubles matches proved to be too much as the Athenas triumphed 5-0. Courtney was a couple points from putting us on the board, Morgan was rolling in her third set and Emily was up a set and on serve looking good so the match was really closer than the score indicates.
Whitman falls to CMS in regional semi 5-0 -click here for story and scores
What I'd like to share with you is a little bit of what it was like to compete at NCAA's. We often talk on our team about competition being more than the desire to win. We focus on the process of being prepared to be our best and then using all of our training to stay in the moment of the match. As a coach, I am blessed to coach 14 young women who each possess an incredible amount of heart, determination and individual competitive spirit. This makes us a very mentally tough group. What has happened this season that has been so special is that these 14 individuals have been able to simultaneously push themselves and each other as a team. There was so much learning this year of how to turn that individual dance between a singles or doubles opponent into a battle for the 5 points that it takes to win a DIII match.
In both matches at regionals I am so proud of the attitude and mental toughness of our team. Each person came away with a terrific experience to be proud of, but I don't think anyone was satisfied with not having won the event. This shows both how far we've come and what we've accomplished in this great team season as well as what we need to do to keep moving to the next level. I'm sure we will be better next year from this experience, but by no means were we "just happy to be there playing hard". I credit sports psychologist Jerry Lynch for introducing me to so many concepts of competing as a process, or a dance, where both competitors "seek together" to find their best performance. Our team this year truly competed and played our best against our toughest competition and looks forward to learning from that and being even better next year.
Of course, in flying to NCAA's there is so much more going on and while the team was so focused on their school and tennis, I can't say enough how huge the efforts were of Seth in his coaching role and Charlotte and Erin who got the experience of traveling and found ways to be huge contributors without playing. And even back home, we felt the presence of Lizzy, Hadley, Liv, Sara and Maggie as their work throughout the year and their constant support via phone and text was so huge in having a great weekend.
We'll also look back on the Family support we've had. It was amazing to see people fly to California to support us. Thanks Dena, Mark, and Sandy for coming from afar. And our SoCal fans included alums, families and friends. From Art, Johanna and even Abby P to Erin's big family and many friends made stops each day, alum Rex took the time to watch two days. We even had some future Whitman parents out cheering us on (great to see you Lori and Joel). Maddy had a host of people out there, even though her junior coach was too busy with his own tennis to come (I guess coaching 4 time defending national champion USC at their regional was a good excuse) and her parents even hosted us on our last day before coming back up, which was an amazing day in Long Beach relaxing, studying, and enjoying being together in the best family environment....I could (and maybe will) write a whole separate post about our great families and friends - which I hope I haven't left anyone out.
The team season is over but with graduation on Sunday, a host of end of season awards and still more tennis at individual nationals with Courtney and Alyssa playing singles and doubles in Cary, NC a week from today, I'm sure I'll be in touch.
Best wishes to all,
John
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Going back to Cali
After winning our first NWC Tournament Championship, we found out Monday that we're off to the regional rounds of the NCAA national tournament in Claremont, CA. Here are the details for this weekend.
For me, a native Californian who loves the golden state, the Northwest always called to me and Whitman has provided the perfect home and community for building a championship tennis team. Whitman has also become home to many amazing college tennis players with 5 Californian's on our roster, so it is going home for many of us to play down South.
I can't tell you how excited I am to play my alma mater in UC Santa Cruz as well as being in a regional with all of the West teams who have been battling each other all season long. Now its playoff time our team is ready to represent the Northwest and do some damage at NCAA's.
Here is the schedule:
Friday 3pm #5 Whitman vs #4 UC Santa Cruz
Saturday 2pm winner plays #1Claremont-Mudd-Scripps
Sunday 1pm (or 2pm if #3 Pomona Pitzer is in match), Saturday winners.
Dave Holden's NCAA preview is at:
and the tournament website via host CMS is at:
We just got in an order of great navy Whitman Tennis Short and Long sleeve t's. If you didn't order and plan to be at the tournament wanting one, please let me know and I'll bring them. Short sleeve are $15 and Long Sleeve are $20. Email me for size availability and if you'd like to see what they look like.
It's an exciting time, I'll try to keep the blog posts updated regularly.
John
Thursday, May 3, 2012
ITA Rankings Released
ITA rankings are released several times throughout the spring season and we have been steadily climbing up the West regional rankings. It is exciting to chart the teams progress from my first season when we were 15th, then we moved to 12th in my second year and finished last year in the top 10. Now at #7 it is a personal high for myself and every one of our current players.
I'm proud of this rise, as I feel it reflects the work that our team puts in to constantly improve and push ourselves. So, I am happy to announce a new chapter in Whitman Tennis as we were just ranked #29 in the country. We know there is much work to do this season as we await selection Monday to find out where and when we will play in the NCAA tournament, but for now we can enjoy the milestone of being nationally ranked.
In other ranking news, Alyssa is ranked 2nd in the West singles and Courtney is 4th, together they are 2nd in doubles.
Links to ITA rankings can be found at: http://www.itatennis.com/AwardsAndRankings/Rankings/2010-11_NCAA_Division_III_Women_s_Rankings/2011-12_Division_III_Women_s_Rankings.htm
-John
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
