Giving Thanks

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!

While Walla Walla sits in a gentle blanket of snow this week, our Whitman students have the week off and most have returned to their homes or left campus with friends for the week. 

Before leaving, however, men's Coach Jeff Northam came up with the terrific idea to get everyone together and enjoy great food and company.  Jeff stepped up big time with a smoked turkey, two beef briskets, and so much locally caught and smoked steelhead that everyone feasted.  With a bevy of sides and desserts to go along with the main courses, everyone had great food and enjoyed the fireside couches of the Whitman alumni house for our feast.

You can check out photos on our team flickr page here.

I want to wish all the best to everyone out there in the extended Whitman tennis family, may you enjoy time with each other and travel safely.

John

Fall ITA Rankings: Two Whitties in the top 20

If you don't check the ITA webpage as religiously as I do, then you won't know that these rankings actually came out a couple of weeks ago, but the 'off season' feels very busy and full of excitement this year at Whitman.  Part of that excitement stems from the strong showing we had at the top of our lineup in the Fall USTA/ITA regional and national championships.

By making the semi's in singles, Alyssa is currently ranked 12th in the West region, and a strong quarterfinal showing in a deep Northwest field puts Elise at #18 in the West. 

While as a doubles team, Elise and Alyssa placed in the top 8 at nationals, there were no national individual rankings because it is near impossible to compare everyone around the nation based on a single tournament.  Still, our duo has moved up 2 spots from their end of season finish last year from #6 to #4 in the West and gained terrific experience with some of the top teams in the nation in Alabama.

Congrats to Twitch and Sho'Po for a great fall, I am so happy with the work that every single person on the team has put in, this fall season I had more requests than ever for individual work outside of practice, which keeps me on court with my team where I love to be.

Coach

Final Post on the USTA/ITA Small College Nationals

Wow, what a great event to be a part of.  As I've recently written, Elise and Alyssa played an incredibly gutsy match to get into the main draw and earn three doubles matches against many of the top DIII teams in the country.  You can check the ITA website for all the scores and info but a quick recap had us up against the back to back NCAA Doubles champs from U of Chicago.  On paper,this was our best match because in losing 6-2,6-2 we got more games than any other DIII team this week as they rolled to the championship.  While we learned a ton and give them full credit (they are an outstanding doubles team and carry themselves very well), there were times we could have executed better or had a little bit more energy.  The consolation semis was against the 4th seeded Washington and Lee team and after taking 2-0 leads in both sets, they stepped up to get us 6-2,6-3.  This match was much more competitive than the score indicates with lots of outstanding points and games, overall it was super fun doubles with great play and intensity.  The 7th/8th match pitted us against the Gusties from Gustavus Adolphus College and they were the only women's team I observed in any of the draws (DII, DIII, JuCo, NAIA) that consistently got both players to the net.  This tested our defense and provided some strategic breakthoughs for Twich and ShoPo who came off the court feeling good about how they played and how close the match actually was, but even better about where their tennis is going.

The whole week was super fun and for some of our travel adventures and a terrific recap of the best match I saw all week and one of the best DIII doubles matches I've ever seen, check out our Men's team recap at Coach Jeff Northam's blog .  As Jeff says, it is rare that we get to travel together or watch each other play, but the community at Whitman is so strong and our teams truly enjoy spending time together so it was an incredible experience for us to spend time with Coach Jeff, Conor and Andrew (and we learned a few things about great doubles).

Personally, it was also nice to see three of the DIII programs in Mobile represented by coaches who attended my alma mater, UC Santa Cruz.  I can never say enough how wonderful DIII tennis is when programs are run by terrific coaches like Jeff and my coach Bob Hansen.  Thanks Bob for helping me and creating such a terrific culture of tennis and life.

So, alas, we are now in our off season, but before leaving for Alabama I had some terrific individual meetings and while we'll all enjoy some time to focus on the other aspects of college life, I suspect that much of the team will be hard at work to come out strong in the Spring!

My best to all,
John

Oh yes, Alyssa Elise and I flew out of New Orleans so we had a small amount of time to explore the crescent city and cap an incredible week with even more fun.

Nationals Loss to Defending NCAA Champs

After winning yesterday's play in match in thrilling fashion, today Elise and Alyssa took on the daunting task of playing the 2 time defending NCAA doubles champs from U of Chicago.  They are a great tandem and while we had some promising tennis overall and did some things well, they were just too much today.  It is definitely a learning experience and we have a short turnaround to apply those lessons with a consolation match tomorrow afternoon.

We're enjoying great weather, warm but not too humid and some awesome tennis here in the south.

John