Getting things going in SoCal vs Salisbury

Hello all, you can read about the match at http://www.whitman.edu/content/womens-tennis, but a big part of this trip so far has been just getting on court.  We travel on spring break for many reasons; fun, bonding, go somewhere sunny and warm while Walla Walla transitions into Spring, and mostly for great non conference matches.  Lots of teams come to California so the tennis is great, but with some crazy weather we've had trouble getting court time.  Our first day's practice was cancelled because of rain, and then our 10am Salisbury match was moved to 6pm (but we did get a warm up in the morning), so when we finally hit the first ball, everyone was really ready to play.

This was important as we came out solid in doubles with Emily and Kate bolting to a 6-1 lead at 2 and Lizzy and Hannah at 3 going back and forth but staying up a game to 8-7 before going into a tie break at 8-8.  Salisbury started to bring their level up, but this whole match was streaky for us and the breaker was not the kind of streak we hoped for and it went quickly to the SeaGulls 7-1.  Meanwhile at 1, we started playing well but down a break 1-3 when composure, strategy and great shotmaking all came together for ShoPo and Twitch in winning 7 straight games to put us up 2-1 after doubles with an 8-3 win over a solid team.

Again, in singles, composure was key as Hannah, Lizzy, Elise and Alyssa all got out to first set wins while Emily dropped a close set 6-4 and Kate got down early and battled but lost her first set.  Alyssa and Lizzy built on their first sets and both played really well with great focus to win in straight sets and put the team score to 4-1 for Whitman.  Kate was having long points and games, but couldn't solve the only senior on the SU lineup and lost in straight sets to make it 4-2.  Kate's game has grown so much but this match was a great lesson on doing the little things consistently well and I know she'll learn a lot from it.

Now, the real intensity of the match was taking place because even with a 4-1 lead, up a set in 2 matches and with Emily getting on top in her second set 6-2 to go to a third set, the Salisbury men were playing next to us against NWC Willamette and SU won all 3 dubs but Willamette stormed back in singles to tie it at 4-4 with the deciding match in a third set (credit to Willamette's guys and coach Toby Krauel, but they did end up losing in a third set 7-6(5)). So, we felt the urgency to close it out.

Elise after playing beautifully in the first and taking advantage of many forced and some unforced errors was down a break 3-5 in the second when she reasserted herself, dug in to break twice and hold to serve 6-5.  It was a really intense match with great sportsmanship from both players as SU broke to get it to a second set tiebreak.  Meanwhile, Emily is up early in the third and on the end court Hannah has been absolutely fighting a mental battle against a very fired up SU player who was playing with a crazy amount of emotion on every point.  After having chances to get us the doubles sweep and then I think having a match point or two at 6-5, this one also went to a breaker at the same time as Elise.  Our SquirrelMissionaryOnion team spread out to support these two and Hannah being a bit flustered went down 0-3.  To her absolute credit and for me, what made her the Whittie of the match (among many tremendous performances) was that she got back to playing her tennis and was the more composed player from here on out and it paid off in a 7-4 tiebreak win to take the second set, the match and seal the team match for Whitman.  Go HP!

Almost at the same time, Elise won a 9-7 tiebreak that I didn't get to watch being down on HP's court and minutes later, Em rolled to a 6-0 third set to seal the 7-2 win.  SU only had 7 players traveling from Maryland so Leah was able to play an exhibition set and the support she, Olivia, Maggie and Hadley gave throughout the match was key to our success.

We're off for two days now, its a bit chilly here but the sun is out today and this team just has so much fun that we're really excited to spend more time together and to get some practice in.  We'll hit the match courts again at 2pm Thursday at Chapman in Orange, CA then it's 2pm Friday at Redlands and 11am Saturday at CMS.

It was wonderful to see Johanna Palkowitz and the Webster's, thanks for braving the rain to come out and see us and also thanks to Pomona Pitzer and Claremont Mudd Scripps for graciously letting us use their courts.

Coach