Wow, what a great event to be a part of. As I've recently written, Elise and Alyssa played an incredibly gutsy match to get into the main draw and earn three doubles matches against many of the top DIII teams in the country. You can check the
ITA website for all the scores and info but a quick recap had us up against the back to back NCAA Doubles champs from U of Chicago. On paper,this was our best match because in losing 6-2,6-2 we got more games than any other DIII team this week as they rolled to the championship. While we learned a ton and give them full credit (they are an outstanding doubles team and carry themselves very well), there were times we could have executed better or had a little bit more energy. The consolation semis was against the 4th seeded Washington and Lee team and after taking 2-0 leads in both sets, they stepped up to get us 6-2,6-3. This match was much more competitive than the score indicates with lots of outstanding points and games, overall it was super fun doubles with great play and intensity. The 7th/8th match pitted us against the Gusties from Gustavus Adolphus College and they were the only women's team I observed in any of the draws (DII, DIII, JuCo, NAIA) that consistently got both players to the net. This tested our defense and provided some strategic breakthoughs for Twich and ShoPo who came off the court feeling good about how they played and how close the match actually was, but even better about where their tennis is going.
The whole week was super fun and for some of our travel adventures and a terrific recap of the best match I saw all week and one of the best DIII doubles matches I've ever seen, check out our Men's team recap at
Coach Jeff Northam's blog . As Jeff says, it is rare that we get to travel together or watch each other play, but the community at Whitman is so strong and our teams truly enjoy spending time together so it was an incredible experience for us to spend time with Coach Jeff, Conor and Andrew (and we learned a few things about great doubles).
Personally, it was also nice to see three of the DIII programs in Mobile represented by coaches who attended my alma mater, UC Santa Cruz. I can never say enough how wonderful DIII tennis is when programs are run by terrific coaches like Jeff and my coach Bob Hansen. Thanks Bob for helping me and creating such a terrific culture of tennis and life.
So, alas, we are now in our off season, but before leaving for Alabama I had some terrific individual meetings and while we'll all enjoy some time to focus on the other aspects of college life, I suspect that much of the team will be hard at work to come out strong in the Spring!
My best to all,
John
Oh yes, Alyssa Elise and I flew out of New Orleans so we had a small amount of time to explore the crescent city and cap an incredible week with even more fun.
