Squirrels knock off #17 Pomona

Mar 212010
 

Great win today for the Fighting Squirrels! We went into todays match ranked #26 and knocked off #17 ranked Pomona Pitzer Sagehens 6-3. Unfortunately its late and I don’t have time for a complete match write-up.

We played PP at the UC Santa Cruz West courts. Doubles started off pretty even. At #2 Quin and Christoph went up two breaks but at #3 Jeffrey and Jake were down two breaks 0-4. About midway through the doubles it appeared that the match would come down to Matt and ET at #1. Quin and Christoph were able to close out their match 8-4. On the heals of that #2 doubles victory, Matt and ET broke (4 great returns in a row) and held to win 8-5. At #3 Jeffrey and Jake dug themselves out of a monster hole and leveled the match at 6-6. At 6-6, with PP serving we had at least two break points to take the lead. Unfortunately we were unable to convert either of the break opportunities. At 6-7 Jeffrey was serving and had a very long game. At one point Jeffrey nailed a half-volley winner to stave off a match point. However in the end PP broke salvaging a point in doubles.

At the Ojai!

Apr 252009
 

Day one complete at The Ojai. Yesterday it felt more like Seattle than Southern California — cloudy, chance of rain and temperatures in the low 60′s. Unfortunately our Seattle boys (Dan and Justin) didn’t feel at home in singles and dropped their opening singles matches. Dan lost to a very tough #2 player from Chapman 6-3, 6-4. Dan struggled a bit and didn’t play his best tennis. In the first set he was broke early and could never get a look at breaking his opponent. In the second set Dan twice went up breaks but he struggled to hold serve. For the record the Chapman player is very good and went on to beat the #9 seed (#1 from Redlands) 7-6, 6-1. Justin played incredibly streaky in his opening match. He won the first set 6-0 and then lost 3-6, 7-5. Considering he hasn’t played a singles match in over a month he played some very good tennis..at times. However at times he would also drop three to four points in a row which eventually doomed his chances of winning the match.

In doubles the Seattle boys fared better. In their first match they were down a break against the #2 Pomona team before winning 8-5. In the second match against Cal Lu’s #3 team they played much better. Match started off pretty close with both teams holding serve. However at 4-4 Dan and Justin picked up their intensity and court movement (crossing more) and won the last 4 games. Very good effort for them to bounce back from disappointing singles losses and win two tough doubles matches.

At 3pm today they play the #1 team from UC Santa Cruz (and #1 seeds). As usual I will twitter updates to the blog.