Tournament Update

Assistant Coach Kris Diehl just completed competing in the USTA Women's 30's at Forest Hills Country Club in New York City. Kris finished 3rd in the country in Singles and 2nd in the country in doubles earning bronze and silver tennis balls from the USTA. Maybe gold is next at the National Clay Courts in November?

Senior Captain Scott Stegemann captured the Quad States Men's Open Singles title as an unseeded entrant knocking off #2 seeded Coe alum Joey Lankelma and top-seeded Matt Tyler. Scott also finished as doubles runner-up teaming with Joey Lankelma.

Michelle Schupbach advanced to the Mixed Doubles Final in the Mississippi Valley Open, a prize money tournament held in Dubuque, Iowa. Teaming with Chris Sagers of Waterloo, they met Nick Crossley and Alexa Palen of Rochester, Minnesota in the Finals

Brand New(Sort of) Courts

After seven years, the Clark Racquet Center outdoor tennis courts had accumulated more than a bit of dirt and debris stuck amongst the grains of sand in the paint. Thus this Summer's facility upgrade project was the cleaning of the courts. Joe Hakes, doing 90% of the labor and all of the supervision, led the project of powerwashing approximately 45,000 square feet of tennis court. Three inches at a time......think about that for a moment!

Closing a Chapter

Today, July 8th 2010, marked the end of my selected term on the NCAA DIII Men's National Tennis Committee after four years, beginning in 2006. I also have "retired" from the Intercollegiate Tennis Association where I have served in various capacities on the the Central Region Ranking Committees since 1995. After 15 years it is time to step aside, let some of the other many capable coaches take over and administer the rankings.

I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed the past 15 years, especially having the opportunity to work with Ethan, Liz and Russ from the NCAA and serving under the leadership of Gary and Paul, and alongside Ben, John and Tracy during my time with the NCAA. I feel real confident about the direction of D3 Tennis and I fully expect the Division to continue to grow in a positive direction.

What's next?

Well, I really am looking forward to the opening of the 2010-11 seasons beginning with Fall Women's practice on August 23rd. I guess I am just very excited about working with Coach Kris and Coach Rob with our Teams and seeing just how good we can become both this year and in the coming years. I am expecting that the three of us can raise the level of performance of Kohawk Tennis.

I cannot wait to get underway!

Final 2010 Rankings!

The Kohawk Tennis Teams were well represented in the final ITA Central Region Rankings.

#17 Women's Singles--Hannah Jensen
#10 Women's Doubles--Andrea & Michelle Schupbach
#13 Men's Team--Coe College
#27 Men's Singles--Greg Janssen
#30 Men's Singles--Elliot Rausa
#12 Men's Doubles--Elliot Rausa & Scott Stegemann

AND, in the rankings of the Recruiting Classes for Men's D3 Tennis(TennisRecruiting.net ), Coe College has the #23 ranked incoming first-year class!

John Wooden

Last night John Wooden, the former Purdue All-American and UCLA basketball coach passed on at age 99. Coach Wooden won many NCAA basketball titles during the 1960's and 1970's.

More importantly, for those of us who coach, he was the greatest coach ever. His manner of coaching, with its emphasis on teaching life skills while coaching a game, has had more influence on generations of coaches than any number of titles could bring. I strive mightily to coach as well as Coach Wooden, while knowing full well that I will never come close.

He will be greatly remembered.

Individuals Day II

No pictures today, just a few words!

Another beautiful day here in Oberlin, Ohio! The staff here at Oberlin have done a fantastic job making all of us involved with the NCAA tournament feel welcome and comfortable. They made a point of taking care of even the smallest details and showing flexibility with the inevitable mid-tourney changes required.

Well done!

Today's play? Quarterfinals in singles & doubles, semi-finals in singles. A very high-level day of play especially in singles. If I were rating today's 10 matches 8 of 10 were very high level and very competitive. As one might expect as the tournament advances towards the final day, the playing level went up, and continued to reflect the observations I have made in previous posts. To re-iterate, in no particular order. GREAT defense, tenacious competitive skills, visible fitness prowess, and a general embracing of challenging, competitive play.

The results? At noon(Eastern) #3John Watts, of WashU will take on #5Chris Goodwin of Emory University. The doubles semis give us #1Middlebury against Trinity of TX, and #2UC-Santa Cruz against #4 California Lutheran.

I promise it will be good!

Available on video streaming via http://www.ncaa.com/

D3 Individuals Day 1

Today the Individual portion of the Men's D3 NCAA National Tourney began. 32 singles players and 16 doubles teams were selected from the over 2000 players in starting lineups around the country. On Day I, two rounds of singles and one round of doubles took place. The picture above shows the concluding handshake in the round of 16 match between Sam Sweeney of North Central College and #4 seed, Andrew Peters of Middlebury College. Peters won 62 63 in an excellent match.

Again what stood out for me was the impeccable defense and shot selection displayed by the vast majority of the singles and doubles players. Very few "free" points were allowed. The other obvious difference from the regular season play that I have viewed was the virtual absence of negative emotion both in the physical sense and in the verbal sense.

Saturday, quarter and semi final singles beginning at 9am, followed by quarterfinal doubles action.

Team Finals

Middlebury wins over Amherst 5-1

The best team won. Five seniors would not be denied, and they got it done. Midd was very fit, very well-coached. Most impressively was the virtually perfect shot selection between offense and defense. Middlebury, even their big-hitters, played defense when needed, rallied HIGH over the net, and then attacked every short ball.

Well done!

Team Semifinals

Wow!

Hard to belive that today could top the finish of yesterday's Amherst/Emory tilt, but BOTH semis were great today! First Amherst took on #3 Claremont and went up 2-1 after a fairly routine hour of doubles. Then the fun began. CMS quicly won first sets at 5 and 6, Amherst countered with a quick set at #1. The teams split first sets at 3 and 4. As the match unfolded CMS actually went up 4-3 with wins at 2, 5, 6, while Amherst won easily at 1. Third sets at 3 and at 4. Another 3rd set tiebreak for the Amherst #3, and again he prevails this time rallying from 1-6 in the TB for a 11-9 win evening the match at 4-4. Five minutes later #4 closes out the match with a 6-2 win and puts #7Amherst into the final.

Where they will face the victor of the WashU/Middlebury match. On paper this looked to be a routine win for the #1Panthers of Middlebury. WashU had other ideas. The teams split 2 and 3 doubles, and WashU served at #1 87 40-15, but Middlebury has the top doubles pair in the country and they showed why breaking serve and then dominating the tiebreak to give Midd a 2-1 lead going into doubles. Straight set wins at 5 and 2 extended the Midd lead to 4-1, before WashU mounted a strong comeback winning court 6 in straight and then adding 3rd set wins at 4 and 1. Midd's 5th year senior at #3 capped a comeback after dropping the 1st set 26 and won 62 in the 3rd at the 4 hour and 35 minute mark of the match.

Middlebury and Amherst are both from the NESCAC Conference where Midd won the only encounter of the season 54 in April. Suffice to say the two schools do not like each other which adds an interesting twist to what has already been a tremendous Team Tourney.

From a coaching view, today's play only reiterated what I saw yesterday. Good players competing with positive energy, intelligent shot selection, tremendous fitness & willpower. Most of all they all played with a sense of confidence and expectation of success. Momentary setbacks, like losses of points & games, were mere blips in the road towards their end goal of winning. While only 1/2 the players, pairs and teams ended up winning, not a single point was given to an opponent. Everything was contested and earned.

Beautiful!

FINALS at 1pm Eastern

Team Quarterfinals

Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH

Team Day I

#1 Middlebury 5 #8NC Wesleyan 0

#4 WashU 5 #5Carnegie Mellon 0

#3 Claremont 5 #6Trinity(TX) 2

#7 Amherst 5 #2 Emory 4

Morning matches both were highlighted by uneventful doubles sweeps which set up the winners. Hidden behind the 5-0 scores were some very strenuous singles matches. Middlebury was working hard at #1-#4, and WashU struggling at #2, #3, #5 and #6. The message from the morning was twofold. Doubles is critical at every level of D3, even the Elite Eight.

Middlebury looked worthy of their top billing. ALL their doubles pairs made serves, returns and 1st volleys, and in singles, even tho their top two had loads of offense, it was their defense that impressed. Very solid, high clear rally strokes and defensive shots. NO UNFORCED ERRORS from Middlebury. Much better 1st serves than the Kohawks have. Currently!

The afternoon matches produced the drama of the day. Trinity continued their streak of great doubles winning 81 at #1, rallying from 0-4 at #2 before falling 86, then their #3pair won 98 coming back from 1-5 in the tiebreak. Trinity taught the lesson of positive emotion and body language during doubles. Claremont proved talented in singles, winning at four of the six singles in a hard fought match.

In the feature match of the day, #2 Emory jumped off to a 3-0 lead after doubles against the streaky Jeffs of Amherst. Since Emory featured unbeaten D3 players at #1 and #2 singles, it appreared bleak for the NESCAC runnerup. But in exciting fashion, Amherst won at #5 and #1 in straight sets before Emory won a 3rd set at #4 for a 4-2 lead. Amherst wins the final three matches in 3rd sets including the decider 76 at #3 for the unlikely upset after being swept in doubles.

A great day and tomorrow should be better! Semifinals at 1pm Eastern