NWC Champs and Tournament Champs....On to NCAA's!

Hello everyone!  It's very exciting to write knowing our wonderful season will continue as we hosted and won the Northwest Conference Tournament to earn the automatic qualification to the NCAA touranament!  Before getting into the home matches last weekend, I have to give credit to Conor H-B for an amazing sequence of photos!

Alyssa in the last shot of her home NWC career rips a backhand winner up the line to win her match, clinch the team match and send us to the NCAA's!

The emotion comes out and everyone knows what just happened, especially Rubes in the background!  Good job by coach Em playing it cool...though keep an eye out for video of her dancing on court in celebration.

So, as I said, our season continues and that is really everything I could hope for.  This team is just so close and so much fun that we had to move on and continue playing for each other.  Also, the improvement from the Fall to Spring and then from the start of Spring to now has been phenomenal.  I think this was reflected in the way that we were able to take it to some very good teams in the tournament and it is exciting to think about building on it even more in the NCAA regional rounds.

The matches Friday against Linfield and then Saturday against Lewis and Clark showcased one of the best displays I've seen of the entire team focusing and being present in the moment together.  From the warmup, into doubles until the last ball, weather it was cheering, being physically and mentally ready or hitting huge shots, everyone knew their part and played it well.

Against Linfield we played inside on a rainy spring day and the crowd in Bratton had awesome energy for a 10am match.  One and two dubs played solid tennis and the key was Katrina and Rubes fighting there way through a tough 8-6 win.  They were pumped coming in to know that their NWC record of 5-0 at #3 was only surpassed by the Linfield team's 11-0 record.  It wasn't their cleanest match, but they established what they wanted to do early and were able to execute at key times to put us up 3-0.  In singles, while Jenna and Morgan battled to first set wins, Alyssa was cruising at #2.  At #1, Courtney was misfiring repeatedly to go down an early break 0-3.  Fortunately, she has worked a ton to improve her serve the past two years and was able to fight out two holds to get to 2-4 before breaking twice to take the set 6-4. After Alyssa won, Courtney clinched the match and as she went to shake her opponents hand, Jenna returned serve and hit a screaming down the line winner on match point, so we had an unusual match score of 6-0 (playing to 5).

With our job done, we were able to enjoy our home advantage to rest, recover, study and enjoy a family dinner.  It was wonderful to have several families with us in Walla Walla and I can't thank you all enough for your support and love.

With a 9am final and no idea if the rain was done or not, we woke to dry courts and were pumped to be outside in the center of campus.  Often in dubs, our all-American team of Alyssa and Courtney leads the way and with the women's basketball team cheering them on they did recover from being down an early break to take a lead.  But the way that we played at two and three was incredible.  At three, against an LC team who made the semi's of the fall tournament, Tree and Rubes put together probably their best display of executing big doubles.  I couldn't be happier for them becuase they are never satisfied and constantly work to raise their level.  With one in a fight, however, Maddy and Morgan provided the energy in the middle.  Playing a tremendously talented team of highly rated first year players, Morgan and Maddy played off of each other and worked as a team so well that the result could never be in doubt.  This energy from two and stellar play from three dubs carried over to one where we grabbed the momentum to go up 7-4, then eased off a little giving up a break to 7-6 before closing it out, again on a big shot from Alyssa who went for it when it counted.

After her struggles against Linfield, Courtney was all focus and against one of the top players in conference, showed that she is ready to play her best tennis in the playoffs and scored a resounding 6-0,6-0 win to put us up 4-0.  We won first sets at #2 and #4 but at three it was Morgan's turn for a slow start and her opponent played amazing tennis to take an easy first set 6-1.  It's Morgan though, and she set herself to the task at hand.  Despite continued great play from her opponent, she was up 5-0 in the second when Alyssa hit the backhand winner to end the match.

Both LC and Linfield played great and showed how our conference keeps getting stronger while maintaining an outstanding level of sportsmanship and respect.  We are lucky to compete with some very classy teams here in the Northwest.  But, I'm very proud to also coach a team that while competing as hard as anyone, can be a model of what team tennis should be.  Playing on four courts (for the final time outside - new courts this summer!), it was incredible how Rubes and KKP stayed ready.  In fact both days, Rubes was up 1-0 in her match when we clinched and while KKP asked the team to keep her off of the court, she was ready as well.  Maggie was again on top of tweets and HP and Liv were a constant presence of vocal support.  After playing big dubs, Maddy was our finals Whittie of the Match as she cheered constantly to keep everyone pumped up until the end.

The next step is NCAA regionals.  We don't know where we'll go.  We find out May 6th and play May 9th or 10th, and the team is preparing to fly wherever they send us and to play our best match of the season in the first round.

To be ready, we have one more home match before the courts are torn down and rebuilt with the addition of two more courts!  We play LCSC in a rematch of our first match and one of our losses this season.   That is set for Sunday May 5th at noon.

Again, thanks so much to everyone for all your help and support.  The celebration wouldn't be nearly as sweet without you.

-John