Arrived mid-afternoon and went straight to the CMS courts. Beautiful complex! Between CMS and Pomona-Pitzer, there are 24+ courts within a very small radius.
Watched the women warm-up in prep for the afternoon quarterfinal matches - Chicago/Denison and CMS/Williams. Started my tournament experience with the Chicago/Denison doubles. Two very different styles. Chicago plays a fairly powerful, confident and aggressive game, oftentimes through the net player. On the other hand, Denison's strength lies in their defense (pulling 2 back at times) with high clearance and LOBS! Chicago appeared a bit flustered with the defense from the outset, but quickly rebounded. In the end, their power was simply too much for the Big Red to handle.....witnessed net players often caught off guard and unable to dig volleys. The singles was quite competitive, but again, Chicago's power, size, aggression and depth in their line-up trumped Denison's defense. Chicago 5-0.
Williams 5, Claremont 0.
The evening men's quarterfinal play included Amherst/Trinity(Texas) and CMS/Williams. There was a very apparent change in the atmosphere moving into men's play. The intensity and energy of both the players, and crowd, increased dramatically. Trinity is known for their doubles play and came out with a tremendous amount of passion and hype. Amherst has been fairly dominant all year, and kept matches tight as they rode out the storm. Over time, momentum slowly shifted in favor of Amherst (due to sheer size, power and forward movement) allowing the Lord Jeff's of Amherst to sweep the doubles, and eventually take the match 5-0.
The CMS/Williams match ended up being the most exciting of the day.....a 4 hour marathon! CMS was a clear favorite going into the match, and remained the expected victor despite being down 2-1 after doubles. Williams won at the top singles spot in 3 sets, but dropped the 2-4 matches to a strong CMS trio. With CMS leading 3-2, 5 and 6 singles both split sets. Williams took the lead 3-1 on both courts. After gaining the lead, Page (Williams) held off Cahill (CMS) at the 6 spot and tied up the match score at 3 a piece. 5 singles became a battle though, and was tied at 3-3 when court 6 wrapped up play. Throughout the remainder of the set, Chow (Williams) had several break points and team match points (5?) against him but managed to fight each one off. Wu (CMS) was cramping throughout the set, but did have the home court crowd in his favor! In fitting fashion for an NCAA Elite 8 match, under the lights, just before midnight, Chow captured the first and only match point in his favor to win the 3rd set, 11-9 in a tiebreaker. Intense! Williams 5, CMS 4.
Quote of the day came from Coach Murph as players from CMS and Williams raced back and forth as the players on Court 5 changed sides....."For 2 smart schools, you'd think they would figure out to simply put 1/2 their team on each side."
Definitely an exciting first day of play for me, and more to come! As the sun went down, realized that I should have brought warmer clothes for evening play!
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