On our first trip to the NCAA's as a team, we faced my alma mater and great friend in Coach Erin Ness in the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs, pulling out a 5-3 win after going down 1-2 after dubs.
Whitman defeats UCSC 5-3 - click here for story and scores
*this match is a preview of a home and home series with the Slugs in 2013. In February UCSC travels to Walla Walla for the DIII Winter Classic at Whitman and in March we'll go down to Santa Cruz on Spring Break to compete in the DIII Megabowl (an up and coming invitational that will no doubt be THE tournament to play each year).
In the regional semifinal, we faced off with #1 in the West and #9 nationally CMS. Going down 0-3 in some great doubles matches proved to be too much as the Athenas triumphed 5-0. Courtney was a couple points from putting us on the board, Morgan was rolling in her third set and Emily was up a set and on serve looking good so the match was really closer than the score indicates.
Whitman falls to CMS in regional semi 5-0 -click here for story and scores
What I'd like to share with you is a little bit of what it was like to compete at NCAA's. We often talk on our team about competition being more than the desire to win. We focus on the process of being prepared to be our best and then using all of our training to stay in the moment of the match. As a coach, I am blessed to coach 14 young women who each possess an incredible amount of heart, determination and individual competitive spirit. This makes us a very mentally tough group. What has happened this season that has been so special is that these 14 individuals have been able to simultaneously push themselves and each other as a team. There was so much learning this year of how to turn that individual dance between a singles or doubles opponent into a battle for the 5 points that it takes to win a DIII match.
In both matches at regionals I am so proud of the attitude and mental toughness of our team. Each person came away with a terrific experience to be proud of, but I don't think anyone was satisfied with not having won the event. This shows both how far we've come and what we've accomplished in this great team season as well as what we need to do to keep moving to the next level. I'm sure we will be better next year from this experience, but by no means were we "just happy to be there playing hard". I credit sports psychologist Jerry Lynch for introducing me to so many concepts of competing as a process, or a dance, where both competitors "seek together" to find their best performance. Our team this year truly competed and played our best against our toughest competition and looks forward to learning from that and being even better next year.
Of course, in flying to NCAA's there is so much more going on and while the team was so focused on their school and tennis, I can't say enough how huge the efforts were of Seth in his coaching role and Charlotte and Erin who got the experience of traveling and found ways to be huge contributors without playing. And even back home, we felt the presence of Lizzy, Hadley, Liv, Sara and Maggie as their work throughout the year and their constant support via phone and text was so huge in having a great weekend.
We'll also look back on the Family support we've had. It was amazing to see people fly to California to support us. Thanks Dena, Mark, and Sandy for coming from afar. And our SoCal fans included alums, families and friends. From Art, Johanna and even Abby P to Erin's big family and many friends made stops each day, alum Rex took the time to watch two days. We even had some future Whitman parents out cheering us on (great to see you Lori and Joel). Maddy had a host of people out there, even though her junior coach was too busy with his own tennis to come (I guess coaching 4 time defending national champion USC at their regional was a good excuse) and her parents even hosted us on our last day before coming back up, which was an amazing day in Long Beach relaxing, studying, and enjoying being together in the best family environment....I could (and maybe will) write a whole separate post about our great families and friends - which I hope I haven't left anyone out.
The team season is over but with graduation on Sunday, a host of end of season awards and still more tennis at individual nationals with Courtney and Alyssa playing singles and doubles in Cary, NC a week from today, I'm sure I'll be in touch.
Best wishes to all,
John
