Hello from Mobile, Alabama.
There are some very excited Whitties here in the south as we fought through a very tough UT Tyler doubles team today in the Northwest/Southwest play in match at the Small College Nationals. The format for doubles here is two out of three sets with a super tie break (to 10) for the third.
UTT came out blazing with big returns and volleys to break us right off the bat and then held to go up 2-0. From there Elise served a great game and we held for 1-2 and they held for 1-3. The next game found us down a break and 0-40. I'm not sure I know quite what happened besides ShoPo and Twitch just stepped up, they fought back and held for 2-3, then ran off 4 straight games for the first set 6-3.
The momentum continued in the second, going up 2-0, but swung back to put us down 2-3. from there we traded games to 3-4 and went down 3-5. After bringing it back to 4-5 our Texas opponents finished the set strong 6-4 to send the match to a 10 point tie break for the right to play 3 more matches this week in Mobile.
As was the theme of the match, momentum continued with UTT going up 3-0, then Alyssa answered with a screaming winner and suddenly the momentum was back to us. Switching at 2-4 it felt like we had it going and we got a lead and held on for the 10-8 win.
Tomorrow at 3pm (CST, 1pm Whitman time), we take on the back to back defending national NCAA champs from University of Chicago and we can't wait!
Articles are on the Whitman site, and our men's team played some terrific tennis which you should read about there, the doubles was right after us and was inspiring to see that level with only 2 breaks of serve the entire match (3 tie breaks!!!).
More tomorrow from Mobile...
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Coaching Philosophy
To me, being a college student is about opportunity and growth. As a coach, I consider myself lucky to spend 4 years providing opportunity while nurturing growth. We use common goals, hard work, open communication, respect and accountability as means to building meaningful relationships and improving each player’s skill set on and off the court. This means embodying championship virtues to inspire athletic, academic and personal growth that not only happens while you are at Whitman, but becomes a part of who you are throughout life.