What I learned Yesterday....and Saturday...

As the posted results state the Coe College Men's Tennis Team participated and won the Kerry Seward Invitational hosted by Wabash College. This has been an annual event for Coe the past few years, but this year, due to a late cancellation, Coe fielded two Teams in the event with Crimson finishing 1st, and Gold finishing 5th.

Although I suspected, the weekend confirmed that the Kohawks have a very deep and talented squad with all 12 participating players performing well against a field comprised of four nationally ranked schools and three other schools in the top portion of their conferences. It was a privilege to have two squads playing and I thank Coach Hutch of Wabash for allowing our players the extra experiences. Each of the next four weekends, Coe will be using at least 12 players, providing more growth opportunities!

Measuring our Tennis Growth is a bit more difficult. Certainly the extra players grew from competing six times over the two day event. For our usual starters, growth was more subliminal, but there. Emotional stability was more present. The concept of tactical adjustment necessity was observed and embraced. (Translation--acknowledging that tactics needed to be changed, listening to coaches and applying their advice, can often work!) Also, once again, our Team Fitness was excellent and continues to be an asset in each event for us. Finally, the idea that our opponents actually can and do hit quality tennis shots, seems to have been accepted as a tennis reality, not a myth that coaches endlessly spout words about. This is a good thing!

Big weekend ahead. Four matches against quality opponents using two Men's squads and the Women return to competition too. I am looking forward to the preparation and the competition. The Schedule gets increasingly more difficult in the month of April and both Teams have the opportunity to play "up" matches the rest of the way.