Monday, September 28, 2009

Follow the Leader

Hello Whitman Tennis enthusiasts!

It has been a gorgeous weekend of wonderful tennis on campus here at Whitman with the men's team hosting their Wilson/ITA Fall regional tournament. Ours is hosted by Linfield with Salem as the indoor backup site in case of rain and starts this Saturday running through Monday.

Our men's team did a wonderful job setting the tone for fall tennis here with some amazing stories that you can read about at http://whitmantennis.blogspot.com. Matt Solomon returned from a semester at Boise State to win his 3rd straight singles title beating Whittie freshman and doubles partner Jeff Tolman in the finals.

With the men being so dominant and following last season's singles and doubles wins from our team, the expectations could be high, but all I see at practice is pure excitement for tennis. We have a terrific group of individuals who are really coming together as a team so I know we will play hard and have a ton of fun next week.

As soon as the draws and seedings come out, I'll keep you updated.

Best wishes from sunny Walla Walla,

John

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

A new season of WC Tennis



Fall has arrived in Walla Walla and today we hit the courts for our first team practice. It is excruciating as a coach waiting for everyone to get settled with classes before kicking off team practice. The good news is that the team comes in fairly fit and excited and we have a few weeks to prepare for the Fall ITA tournament at Linfield Oct 3rd-5th where we will defend our singles and doubles titles without either player who won those.

One of those players, doubles All-American, Katie Oost has hopped the fence and is now enjoying the power of being our assistant coach. Elise Otto, as a junior, is spending the fall abroad as so many Whitties do.

Our incoming class includes two Californians, Alyssa Roberg from Santa Cruz and Danielle Broida from Santa Barbara. Both players bring a lot of talent and excitement to the team.

From Wisconsin, we have Dena Wessel, whose footspeed and ability to punish short balls will be as much of an asset as her amazing personality (and spf 70 sunblock).

Finally, we have two Washingtonians (is that right?); Lauren Olson from Seattle and Kate Kunkel Patterson from Yakima. Each has a sibling who plays a sport at Whitman (Kate is the 3rd K-P to play for the women's team at Whitman!). Each is both athletic and mentally tough and I can't wait to see more tennis from them after they had successful high school campaigns.

Hopefully, we'll get around to getting some bio's of everyone up on the team website soon.

Best regards from sunny Walla Walla,
Coach Hein