Second at NWC Tournament, Lot's of First's

FIRST, the good news.

We finished our 2009-2010 season on a great note at the Yakima Tennis Club playing in the final match against Whitworth while our men's team was right next to us taking FIRST in their draw and advancing to the NCAA national tournament. We had our FIRST win over Linfield since 01-02 in the semi's, we earned two FIRST team All NWC players in Alyssa Roberg and Elise Otto (go Show Pony and Twitch!) and I was voted to my FIRST NWC Coach of the year award, which is a truly humbling honor that is a reflection of the wonderful students that I am fortunate enough to coach.

Now, to the second. In windy conditions that took us a little longer to adjust to than Whitworth, we went down early in #2 doubles and played from a game behind for most of the match at 3. To their credit, our seniors showed their mettle and played the type of doubles that would have won them the match, unfortunately, they were already down 6-1, and ended up losing 8-3. Next, Wolverine and Sabertooth (Kate and Em) could not quite claw and bite their way back into the proset, falling 8-5. Going down 3-0 would have been an absolute disaster and as all of the players and fans descended on the stadium court for the conclusion of 1 doubles, Show Pony and Twitch had just earned a break and then responded to the pressure and crowd by playing their best games of the match to score an 8-5 win. Alyssa was prancing even after spraining her ankle in the Pacific match and she made some huge serves, smart groundstrokes and poaches so big you would think she was over 6 feet tall with all the court she covered. As a team, they had talked about the need to own the net with the windy conditions and Elise's volley game had fans wowing and Whitworth wondering as we pulled the match score to 1-2.

In singles, we had 5 courts at the main part of the Yakima tennis club and a contingent led by assistant coach extraordinaire Katie went to the upper courts a few hundred yards away and completely out of site for the #6 match. At the lower courts, Div put the finishing touches on a stellar Whitman career avenging her only conference losses of the season in straight sets with a smart blend of offense and defensive tennis. I need to do some final counting, but Div has over 130 wins (singles and doubles) over 4 years and might be the winningest Whittie Woman that we have on record (a summer project for me to find out).

Emily was next to her and while her doubles struggles carried through her first set she showed wonderful composure and nearly fought back in the second. Emily had a tremendous sophomore season and is not showing any signs of leveling off as she gets better and better, proving that she is a force in singles and doubles in our lineup.

Hadley and Elise played side by side and the score does not do justice to Hadley's efforts. She will be the first to admit that she can play better, but her opponent deserves the credit as her consistent topspin was a perfect game for yesterday's windy conditions. Like Div, Hadley has accomplished so much in 4 years and I am so proud to call myself her coach, she is such an amazing player, student and person so look for great things from her post-graduation.

With the score overall 4-2, Elise knew we needed every point and was pumped up to be able to provide that spark. What was most gratifying to me, however, was that at the start of the season Twitch and I talked about her goals for the season and without going into the secret details, she absolutely stuck with her plan for the season and it paid off with a conference tournament where she went 3-0 in doubles and 3-0 in singles, doing it all the way she wanted to, which is a testament to her persistence, work ethic and ability.

At 4-3 overall, word had come down from above that Kate lost the first but was super close in the second. Alyssa fought back from a 0-3 first set to be up 6-5, when fellow first team all NWC selection Rachel Burns found a way to fight into the tiebreak and battle out a hardfought 7-5 win. Needing two 3 set comebacks from two freshman, we absolutely were in it as Kate went to a second set tiebreak knowing that her fitness in a 3rd would be an advantage. I didn't see the tiebreak, but Katie told me how well Kate fought and how much of a battle it was. Unfortunately for us, another 7-5 tie break went to the Conference Champions and we halted Alyssa's second set as Whitworth took the match 5-3 and earned the Automatic qualification (AQ) to the NCAA DIII national tournament next month.

This has truly been an amazing season, not only were we talented, hard working and fun, but we showed a level of team spirit, determination and sportsmanship that continually inspired me as a coach and teacher.

In Yakima this weekend we were so lucky to have our men's team there, they are a huge force as fans and role models as they cheer and compete with intensity and integrity, congrats to Jeff and his guys for winning the tournament and advancing to the NCAA's! We also had such amazing parents; the Kaur's, Rolston's, Rosemary Otto, Mark DeBree, and the Kunkel's were amazing fans and support and kept us fed and happy the whole time. An extra special thank you goes out to Annie Kunkel who Friday night fed BOTH Whitman teams and all the parents and our amazing staff that was at the tournament. It was a feast and also a feat that I don't quite understand, but somehow Annie pulled it off and made it look easy. Being the tournament hosts, we had great fans with Alums including Alex and staff with Dave Holden (our amazing SID), Brooke Kennedy, who did the best job of any trainer I've witnessed at a big tournament like this and she did it all by herself, Dean Snider our AD, and Brett Axelrod, Whitman Alum and Soccer assistant coach who worked tirelessly all weekend to keep the facilities tip top and also got a ton of video and photos that I can't wait to see and share.

And to all those who couldn't attend, but sent your wishes, it meant a lot as we concluded our most successful season since 2002 with the promise of only moving forward in the future.

My next posts will be less frequent but I will keep you up to date with photos, end of season accolades and any other news from the courts and classrooms in Walla Walla.

Thanks for reading and following us!
John