ITA Small College National Championship

Oct 142010
 

One of the fun things about traveling is the sense adventure. Playing tennis has provided Whitman players (and myself) a great opportunity to explore new parts of the country. This week I was lucky enough to travel to Mobile, AL with Conor and Andrew as well as Coach John, Alyssa Roberg and Elise Otto of the women’s team. Because of the nature of tennis scheduling we really never to get travel or play at the same time as the Women’s team. It was a special treat traveling and hanging out as a group.

The trip to Mobile was certainly an adventure — especially for our talented freshman Andrew La Cava. Prior to the trip Andrew spend almost the entire week in the Whitman health center or the ER. Unfortunately he caught some bug and had a temperature of 103.6. Needless to say he was down and out for the entire week prior to the trip. By the end of the week I was worried if he was going to be able to make the trip. Luckily by Sunday he was feeling well enough to check out of the health center and get in a few practice sessions. Continue reading »

NWC Tournament Champions!

Apr 182010
 

Yes! We finished up an undefeated conference season by winning the NWC team tournament. This is a very important tournament as the winner gets an AQ (automatic qualifying) spot in the NCAA III team tournament (May 14-16).

One of the many things I love about Whitman is the institutional support of athletics. Our program is well funded and we get the opportunity to travel extensively to compete against the best teams in the nation. This is, without a doubt, one of the reasons our players improve and the tennis program continues to improve (also one of the reasons our team chemistry is so unbelievable but that is another story). This season three of our losses have been to teams ranked in the top 10 and the fourth loss was to a team that started the year at #11. In all those matches we were competitive and everyone on the team knows if we play just a little better we can win those matches. I strongly feel that has a team, as a player, and as a coach one doesn’t improve unless they challenge themselves against better opponents. Continue reading »

Woo Woo into the Conference Finals

Apr 172010
 

Sorry this is going to be a very short note: its 11pm already and we have an early day tomorrow. This afternoon in the NWC semi finals we faced a very tough PLU team. Even though PLU went into the tournament as the #4 seed they were arguably one of the hottest teams in the conference. In the two weeks prior to the NWC tournament they defeated both Linfield and Willamette (#2 and #3 seeds).

Our match was scheduled to start at 3:30pm, but our womens team had a GREAT win over #2 seed Linfield. I’m so proud of the women and coach Hein’s effort. They are playing in the conference finals at noon tomorrow…will be fun since we will be playing together! Continue reading »