So, hitting the road for a full weekend of three DIII matches including our first two in NWC play and our only scheduled match vs a California school this season leaves A LOT to talk about, so I'll try to hit the highlights and summarize a very solid weekend of tennis and a super fun trip.
First, we traveled with all 14 members of our team and everyone got to play. If you've been around this group at all, you'll know that as a unit these young women are exceptional at working together and supporting each other and they have a great time being together so a road trip to start the NWC season was terrific.
They also are probably the most talented and competitive group I've coached, so it did sting us a bit to go down 3-0 to Linfield in doubles. It was a day of turnarounds with 1 dubs going up 5-2 before losing and 2 and 3 coming back from big deficits to lose narrow 8-6 prosets. Anything can happen in these and we found that out at the cost of being down 3 points headed into singles. Fortunately, our resolve was amazing and we fought back to a point where it was 3-3 in matches, Kate was down a set, Hannah was up a set and Emily was up a break in the first set. It looked promising, but we couldn't quite pull it out and so we started the season bravely, but must learn from a conference loss in a very winnable match for us.
I can't say enough about resolve and the ability to compete and it showed the next day as we rested some of our key players and still got the best of a much improved LaVerne team 9-0! We also won every exhibition for a total of 16-0 on the day including some big comebacks from Kate, Emily and Lizzy. It was great to play a non conference team in the Northwest and Coach Duron really has the Leopards of LaVerne on the right track from when we played them two years ago.
Our weekend concluded with a Presidents day tilt with NWC foe Willamette. Again, learning from the Linfield match, we stepped up in doubles to take 2 of the top 3 and score 2 exhibition wins. This was Sara's first point for the team and she earned Whittie of the Match honors with her solid play, great teamwork and amazing energy from the start. Alyssa was not getting much better, so I decided to let her rest and Maddy subbed in at 1 doubles where she and Courtney played a brilliant match; on serve at 2-3, they held Maddy's serve and rolled off 5 more games for an 8-3 win. I've been looking for Maddy to consistently play at the level I know she can and it was terrific to see it in action. HP and Lizzy gutted out a win and Charlotte and Maggie took command in their proset to score exhibition wins. After splitting the singles for a 5-4 win, we got three more exhibitions on and Erin again showed that her consistency and composure are as big as her huge serve while Olivia managed her match really well and Hadley took care of business to all win prosets.
So, we are 2-2, 1-1 in conference, but we do get another shot at Linfield on our home courts and it should be a terrific match between two great teams.
We are on the road again this weekend before having two weekends at home prior to Spring break. If you are in the Tacoma area, you should definitely watch us take on PLU Friday at 3:30pm and UPS Saturday at 11am followed by Bellevue CC at 4pm.
Both Saturday matches will be at UPS and in between we'll have an afternoon reception with the team and some between match snacks, so please email or call me if you will be at the matches and we'll make sure to have food for you.
Happy post presidents day!
John
(509) 301-8502
heinj@whitman.edu
