Whitman Tennis

Wrapping up spring break

Sorry for the delay in posting but between practices, matches, driving and dinners we have had a couple long days.

Tuesday we dropped a competitive 3-6 match to #15 Bowdoin on the CMS courts. We got off to a bit of a rough start in doubles. Even though Jeff/ET won easily at #2 doubles we dropped #1 (Conor/Andrew) 8-5, and the #3 team of Quin/Matt let a 6-3 lead evaporate and lost 6-8.

Bowdoin is known as a good singles team and they lived up to their billing winning 4 of the 6 singles. Our only wins were Jeff at #4 and Adriel at #6. The entire team certainly gave a great effort but we really needed to have the lead after doubles to crack the tough Bowdoin singles line-up. After the match I felt we were in a pretty good place emotionally, but physically we looked tired. This was, after all, our 5th match in 5 days against nationally ranked opponents. The intense matches, heat, travel, and fierce competition was taking its toll. At this point I was already worried about our Wednesday regional match at Cal Lutheran.

For the Cal Lutheran match I pulled Chris (he had been struggling) and decided to switch ET and Andrew (ET has been playing incredibly well). Against Cal Lutheran (#12 in nation) we not only got off to a bad start in doubles but a very low energy start. Number three doubles played horrible losing 8-1 and #1 doubles didn’t fair much better losing 8-2. This left the doubles in the hands of Jeff/ET at #2 doubles. Losing #2 doubles would of not only put us down 0-3 but would of sucked the energy out of the tired Whitties. […]

By admin|March 17th, 2011|2010-2011 Season, Bowdoin, Cal Lutheran, Competition|0 Comments

Ah the ups and downs of tennis

Tennis certainly has its ups and downs. On Saturday we defeated the #9 team in the nation and today we lost to a lower ranked UT Tyler 3-6. As a team we knew the importance of the match today — winning would lock us in as one of the top teams in the West. I don’t feel like we had a let down but rather got out played by a feisty UT Tyler team.

In doubles two of the three team teams came out firing. I don’t have the scores in front me but I think we won at #1 and #3 by identical 8-4 scores. Unfortunately #2 doubles had their worst match of the year losing 1-8. Still going up 2-1 after doubles certainly put us in the driver seat.

In singles Tyler was simply too tough for us. Not sure how else to say it but we didn’t perform like we would like to in clutch situations. For the most part we didn’t play poorly, but rather didn’t play well at certain times of the matches. We lost three three-set matches and one match 7-6, 7-6. However this is exactly why we take a spring break trip: the opportunity to play good teams which not only makes us better players but a tighter team. Honestly in all of my years coaching this is one of my favorite teams (sorry alums). They have pushed each other all year to get better, incredibly supportive of each other, and a blast to be around. I’m sure today’s experience will make us a better team down the road.

Here are the singles scores (again I don’t have my score book in front of me so its a bit of […]

By admin|March 14th, 2011|2010-2011 Season, Competition, UT Tyler|0 Comments

Whitties knock of #9 Trinity!

What a special day for Whitman tennis! Today in the Stag-Hen we had the opportunity to play Trinity University (#9 in the nation) for 5th/6th place. Trinity is one of the great programs in DIII and they typically make a good run at the NCAA’s.

Going into the match we knew doubles was critical. On any given day Trinity might have the top 1, 2, 3 doubles line-up in the nation. In fact their #1 team of Cocanoughar/Kowel were the runner-ups at the 2010 NCAA doubles championships. Honestly they don’t drop much from one to three doubles. It is funny how scheduling goes — in the fall Andrew/Conor had the opportunity to play the #1 Trinity Team at the ITA Small College Championships. The Trinity duo ended up winning that match 6-7, 7-6, 10-6. Going into today’s match Andrew/Conor knew they had their hands full, but they also knew they could compete with and beat the TU team. Perhaps more importantly they were hungry for a rematch. (more…)

By admin|March 13th, 2011|2010-2011 Season, Trinity TX|0 Comments

Spring Break Day One

First off I apologize for shortness of this post. It has been a long couple days and we have an early match tomorrow morning.

Thursday we left campus at 9am for the trek to Southern CA. Academically it is tough to miss the last day before spring break — lots of tests and papers are typically due before break. In fact I know last night several of the guys were up to the wee hours of the morning working on papers.

Today was the first day of the Stag-Hen tournament hosted at the campuses of Claremont and Pomona. This is one of the top DIII tournaments of the year. This year the 8 team tournament is loaded with four top 10 teams. This morning we started off the tournament against the #7 team in the nation Kenyon. We had been looking forward to this match for weeks: it isn’t often we get the opportunity to play a top 10 team on a neutral surface. (more…)

By admin|March 12th, 2011|2010-2011 Season, Competition, Kenyon, Swarthmore, Trinity TX|0 Comments

Weekend Recap

Over the weekend we were able to win two matches in Tacoma (8-1 vs UPS and 7-2 vs PLU) but mother nature got the better of our Whitworth match forcing us to reschedule after spring break.

I must say logistically last weekend presented some challenges. All week I had been keeping an eye on the condition of Snoqualmie Pass (the I90 pass through the Cascade Mountain Range into Seattle). During the early part of the week the pass was closed but as the week progressed the road conditions improved. Additionally since Spring Break is around the corner (starts this Friday) some of the guys had a lot of academic pressures and couldn’t make the trip. Because of this we ended up taking nine players to the Tacoma matches and Coach Jake was going to bring the remaining three players to Whitworth for our Saturday match. Since we were playing three matches in 24 hours this would allow us to rotate players helping ensure everyone would remain fresh during the long weekend. (more…)

By admin|March 7th, 2011|2010-2011 Season, Competition, Pacific Lutheran, Puget Sound|0 Comments

Two wins at home

After playing our first five matches on the road it was nice to finally be playing at home. Saturday presented a challenging day as we played a back-to-back double header. In the first match of the day we played Lewis & Clark (0-2 in conference play). This was a great match for the team as we mixed up the line-up giving most everyone the opportunity to play.

Doubles started off strong, grabbing an early lead in all the matches. At #1 doubles Quin/Matt won 8-3, at #2 doubles Sam/Adriel won 8-0, and at #3 the freshman duo of Will/Steven won 8-1.

In singles Quin really thrived playing in the #1 slot. Quin was very excited for the opportunity to play #1 because LC has one of the better #1 players in the conference. Quin has been playing great tennis this season and dismantled a very good player 6-1, 6-1. The rest of the matches featured similar scores — #2 Sam won 6-0, 6-1, #3 Adriel won 6-1, 6-0, #4 Matt won 6-2, 6-0, #5 Will won 6-0,6-0 and #6 Steven won 6-2, 6-1. (more…)

By admin|February 27th, 2011|2010-2011 Season, Competition, Lewis & Clark, Linfield|0 Comments

Portland part 2

On President’s day we wrapped up our swing through the Portland area with a 1pm match against Willamette (indoors). After playing a double header on Sunday in extremely cold weather and spending many hours in a bus the team was a bit stiff. However after a good warm-up the Whitties were ready for battle.

In an earlier post I mentioned the effects of graduating 7 seniors. Graduating that many good players could decimate at team. We were lucky to mitigate that effect by having strong player development and a talented freshman class (Andrew La Cava, Steven Roston, Will Husky and Atanas Atanasov). Something positive, however, has happened with the player graduation — the current team has found its own voice. It appears that this year’s team is about energy and passion. Honestly this might be the most vocal and energetic team I have coached. From top to bottom, from those playing to those watching, this team is absolutely committed to each other. I think playing the energized and vocal George Fox team Sunday awoke that voice. (more…)

By admin|February 22nd, 2011|2010-2011 Season, Competition, George Fox, Willamette|0 Comments

Whitties drop hard fought match to LCSC

Its funny how 10 minutes can turn a match. Sunday we traveled to Lewiston to play Lewis-Clark State College. LCSC is consistently one of the top NAIA programs in the nation (currently #16 in NAIA) and we typically have some real battles with the Warriors. Making matters worse, we have always struggled against LCSC in their indoor courts — in fact in all my years of coaching at Whitman we have only won once at LCSC. Coupled with the fact we narrowly defeated LCSC last year on our home courts (4-3) we knew were going to be in for one heck of a battle.
(more…)

By admin|February 14th, 2011|2010-2011 Season, Competition, LCSC|0 Comments

Yellow Jersey

Well it isn’t quite a 4-way but this week we had a 2-way tie for the yellow jersey. And yes I agree with you Winklboy we shouldn’t allow ties. Looks like I need to work on a tiebreak process.
Seven players were nominated this week. Winners for the week.
Adriel Borshansky
Chris Bailey
Congratulations to both Adriel and Chris!

By admin|February 2nd, 2011|2010-2011 Season, yellow jersey|0 Comments

Yellow Jersey

Those that follow the Whitman tennis program know that one of our weekly traditions is players select who they felt was the team leader for the past week. There is no specific criteria for the award — it can be based on a player’s presence, academic work, playing, effort, conditioning efforts, practice, helping others, etc.

This week was the first time there was a four-way tie for the award! The co-leaders for the past week are:

Quin Miller
Etienne Moshevich
Chris Bailey
Conor Holton-Burke

Congratulations to all!

By admin|January 26th, 2011|2010-2011 Season, yellow jersey|0 Comments

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