Friday, February 28, 2014

Matches in Portland This Weekend

Just a quick note that we have two matches in Portland this weekend!

Sat 3/1 at George Fox in Newberg 11am (if dry) -
*if wet we will start at 12:30 at Tualatin Hills Parks and Rec on Walker Road in Beaverton

Sun 3/2 at Lewis and Clark College 10am

If you're in the area, come on out (or in) and show your Whittie pride!  If you're in Walla Walla, watch some baseball or enjoy our #1 nationally ranked women's basketball team in the NWC tournament final vs Whitworth as they look to qualify for NCAA's!

Monday, February 24, 2014

Busy Busy Busy....Love Love Loving It!

Hi everyone,

Whoa, there is so much to talk about this time of year so I'm sure I'll forget some things.  First, I want to get some thank you's out there.  We hosted two home weekends here and everyone from our families, the campus and the Walla Walla community who came to support us (and our opponents) helped create a wonderful, positive exciting atmosphere for college tennis.  We want to thank you all, it means so much to have fans.  Speaking of fans, I know some of you were able to watch the matches livestreamed online.  This could not have happened without generous financial support, the wild genius of Men's Coach Jeff Northam and hard work from Dena Wessel, Brian Griffith, Kyle Singer, the WCTS crew of Mike and Kevin and Jordan Paden here at Whitman.  We are still in the infancy/testing stages, but I have heard from some of you that you were able to watch matches which is terrific!

Going back to the exciting environment, we started our Northwest Conference title defense carrying the excitement from the Winter Classic with a down the wire 5-4 win over perennial rival Linfield.  We came out strong in doubles, taking 2 or 3 plus a great win by Liv and Seana at 4; but the sweep was averted by a tough Linfield #1 team who squeaked out an 8-6 win over Courtney and Erin.  When you look at the box scores, you'll see lots of lineup tinkering by me and having players with the talent, focus and love of each other to switch things up, adjust for school, illness or injury and not miss a beat is something that just reinforces to me what a special team we have this year.

Going back to that scoresheet, up 2-1, Erin rebounded from the tough doubles loss by controlling baseline rallies but also playing defense when necessary and building really solid offensive points in a quick 2 set win to put us up 3-1.  On the other end of Bratton, Katrina struggled to find consistency and her opponent took advantage playing the best match I've ever seen from her to close the gap to 3-2.  Playing one of the top players in conference, Courtney showed why she is the defending NWC player of the year with a convincing win that put us up 4-2 on the brink of victory.  With Morgan resting a strained muscle, Jenna stepped in at #2 and had a tough time but battled like a champ, inspiring Seana and Hannah who went on next to her.  Seana fought well in losing, but where before we saw glimpses of her best tennis, she is quickly maturing into a wonderful singles player to go along with her big doubles game.  But the day rightly belonged to Hannah.  The senior has been so good with her habits physically, mentally and in putting in extra work on her shots.  She prepares as well as anyone we have and in a close match, she brings it.  Her opponent was also super tough mentally but Hannah found ways to win points, sometimes long grinding ones, other times being aggressive, but always fighting with huge heart.  at 3-4 with everyone watching, she secured a huge hold, then broke and held strongly to elate the team and give us a huge 5-4 win.

Today was also the day we honored Courtney as a member of the Whitman Century Club.  Her accomplishments on court are many as she will finish this season as a 5 time (3 doubles 2 singles) all-American and she hit the century mark during NCAA's her sophomore year which is ridiculous.  Currently, her Whitman record is at 128-40 (76%) which places her already among the best in program history.  And by the way, she is still ultra hungry to keep improving...watch out.

100 wins for Whitman ...and counting!

We surprised Courtney with the Banner presentation!


Oh, there is so much more, as Willamette came to town Saturday.  Again, mixing things up, a big highlight was Katrina and Erin winning at #1 doubles as we rested the twins.  They defeated one of the top teams in conference who had the day before won at Whitworth who have a great #1 doubles team.  Allie, who has been patiently working back from a wrist injury, finally got on court and won freshman doubles with Seana 8-0 and also scored a double bagel in singles at #5.  Liv was also dominant at #6, winning 6-0,6-1 but more than the scoreline, she was moving super well around the court and played smart the whole time.  Katrina, Hannah and Courtney also contributed big wins in our 8-1 victory to go 2-0 in Conference play.

Wanting to squeeze every bit of fun from the weekend we drove up to Cheney and Chelsea enjoyed a homecoming to her alma mater (class of 2013) at Eastern WA.  Last time we came, C Patt won both her matches en route to a 7-0 EWU win.  This time, the young Eagles team came out fast in doubles, getting the point even with some solid play from us.  Then, in singles, Courtney and Morgan ran into hot players playing their best while Jenna and Erin battled hard in straight set losses.  So, with the match decided, our team proved that we fight for every ball and do it together all the way.  With Hannah dominating at #6 and Katrina stepping up in a back and forth battle to win the match tie break, we closed the gap to 5-2 (doubles is one point in D1 tennis) and came away not only with a fun level of tennis and some great experience, but a tangible benchmark of our teams improvement.

This week will be fun to get some practices in, rededicate ourselves to fitness and prepare for a road trip to Portland to play George Fox and Lewis and Clark.

George Fox is Saturday at 11am at GFU unless it rains and then we have courts at Tualatin Hills Parks and Rec Tennis Center in Beaverton at 12pm (est. 12:30 start).

Lewis and Clark is a 10am Sunday start and is a rematch of last years NWC tournament final.  The Pios have had trouble in the young season but are still a well coached program with a lot of talent, so we'll be ready for both teams to bring their best!

If you're in the Portland area, we'd love to see you at the matches!

Sincerely,
Coach John

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Whitman Family, Friend and Alumni Tennis Weekend Announced

Friends, Families and Alums,

The results are in and the decision has been made: the 2014 Whitman Women's Tennis Family, Friends, and Alumni Weekend will be April 11th - 13th!

Please save the date and start making your travel plans. Of course, don't sweat it if you are unable to make it out to Walla Walla for this particular weekend, but plan on supporting the team at other matches. Your support is always greatly appreciated (especially down in SoCal for our spring break trip)!

While we are still working out the details, the schedule as stands includes the 2 pm match against Whitworth on Saturday (warm-up at 1 pm) and a dinner that night. Please confirm your attendance for dinner numbers, and let us know if you would be interested in participating in any family/friend/alumni tennis on Sunday!

If you're looking for a place to stay in Walla Walla, the NW Conference does have a partnership with Red Lion Hotels which recently bought the hotel close to downtown and campus. To make a reservation, log onto www.redlion.com and use the promotion code NW2 for a 10% discounted rate.  If you have any other travel or event questions, don't hesitate to contact me at heinj@whitman.edu.

Hope to see you in April!

Sunday, February 16, 2014

The Winter Classic...A Battle in Bratton

Hi everyone,

Today really kicked off the main part of our Spring dual match season and it was a barnburner with La Verne.  If you look at rankings, we came in favored as the #16 team nationally and La Verne was #28, but preseason rankings are from last year so I figured this one would come down to a few points here or there.  The team did just about all we could to get things to fall our way, but in the end fell to a great team 5-4.

The match started with tremendous energy.  We played a 4th doubles and the freshman/senior combo of Seana and Hannah were both efficient making balls and simple plays as well as ruthless finishing shots as they rolled to an 8-1 win.  Next to them, Tree and Erin at #2 just played really solid doubles, starting off with a break of serve and rolling to an 8-3 win.  These two do a great job playing off of each others shots and against a tough opponent they were also covering the court extremely well extending points and turning defense into offense...it was a great testament to the footwork and fitness we've practiced.  The trend continued at #3 with Jenna and Maddy showing huge emotion at the right times winning the key games to win 8-4 and put us up.  The lead was slim though with Courtney and Morgan facing a dynamic and loose team at 1 doubles who got a lead and held on even when the twins stepped it up.

So, we had that energy you want going into singles needing a split and with 4 matches on, we knew it was a battle with Court, Jenna and Tree dropping their first set but Morgan winning hers.  Each match turned with Morgan and Tree going to a third set and Courtney having points to go up 5-4 and Jenna up 5-2 before long long hard fought games ended in straight set Leopard victories.  Now down 3-2 and in third sets we felt good as Erin took the court at #5 and quickly got up 3-0.  Maddy was pumped to go on at #6 while Mo and Tree fought.  Morgan's set was a war every game with smart play and huge shots from both players.  Tree was down a break 1-4 but fought back to serve for the match 5-4 while Morgan was at 5-5.  It was intense and thrilling to see Tree fight back so hard and for Morgan to battle one of the better #2 players in the West Region.  I have to give tons of credit to LaVerne as their players stepped up to hit key shots and two winnable matches went away.  Even with Erin holding on to win the first set then steamroll the second and Maddy rocking her singles it wasn't enough.  I've been in a lot of college tennis matches and these are the ones you feel the most, the most joy, the most pain, but as a coach if you can look at your team, feel their support and love for each other and know they left everything they had on the court, you feel very proud.

This makes what Erin, Maddy and Olivia at #7 did even more special, to know the match is over but to dig in and pull out matches shows how these players only know one way to play...tough.  This match will sting in our ranking, but it is still February and as we start the Northwest Conference season at home this Friday and Saturday, it is so cool to see that we've applied many of the lessons from our Hawaii trip and so now we can turn to how we crank it up one more notch.  I'm sure we'll enjoy a day off tomorrow and be ready to hit the courts again Tuesday getting ready for perennial conference contender Linfield.

The atmosphere in Bratton was so fun today, we had family, friends, community members, students, staff and profs as these two great teams went head to head.  Coach Jeff was instrumental in getting some tennis streamed live and Coach CPatt was on point all day, way to go Chels!  Thanks so much to those of you who came out, especially if you made the trip to come here.  The winter classic was a great success and your support means so much as we LOVE playing on our home courts.

Happy Presidents Day and a huge birthday shout out to Jenna!

Coach John

Saturday, February 15, 2014

The Classic is Here

No, not the Olympic Games in Sochi, its the annual Whitman Women's Tennis Winter Classic.

It started today with University of LaVerne defeating the Pioneers of Lewis and Clark.  The score is 7-0 as I write and the depleted Pio's will surely gain strength as the season continues and they get some players back.

However, LaVerne, ranked #28 preseason has taken care of business in their two matches so far, also taking advantage of a UC Santa  Cruz team that lost some key players from last years #14 ranked team.

It should be a terrific match and we are pioneering livestreaming.

We are using livestream.com, and it is a free service for us but you must make an account.

Each court will have a separate account so if you open windows with all of them, you can switch court to court (I'm still working a scoreboard, but will update the @coachhein twitter feed at the very least).

The links are:
Court 1 is called WCTennis Court 1 and the link is
http://new.livestream.com/accounts/7192952

Court 2 is called WCTennis Court 2 and the link is
http://new.livestream.com/accounts/7192971

Court 3 is called WCTennis Court 3 and the link is
http://new.livestream.com/accounts/7193039

Court 4 is called WCTennis Court 4 and the link is
http://new.livestream.com/accounts/7194245

If any feeds go down or you have questions, we may or may not be able to fix them, but you can leave a comment or reply to a tweet, if you text me I may or may not see it or be able to do anything, it is test phase still, but we're really excited.


Monday, February 10, 2014

Catching up from Walla Walla

Hi everyone,

I'll make this quick as the days are flying by here.  After a wonderful trip to Hawaii, the team came back to start the semester and carry our momentum from the trip.

We've absolutely done that with some terrific practice weeks and outstanding work to improve our fitness and mental toughness.  I am so proud of how committed the team is to getting better and each day it feels more and more like a veteran group who knows what they want and how to work to get it.

This was evidenced in one of the most complete performances I've seen as we defeated #7 in NAIA Lewis and Clark State College (ID).  LCSC was missing some key players and we rested Katrina who was recovering from a mild muscle pull, so I'm sure the next time we face them it will be another tough battle, but on this day, I couldn't be more proud of how we competed, regardless of the score.

Fortunately, the hard work and positive attitudes paid off and we were able to come through on the scoreboard, you can read about the match here.  With so many outstanding performances, Allie and Hannah were co-Whitties of the Match with Allie showing how to get ahead and put her opponents away clinically and Hannah demonstrating the poise and fight of a battle tested senior coming back from 1-6,2-5 to win in a match tie break.

I'm hoping to get one more blog out this week with a preview of this weekends annual Whitman Winter Classic.  This year we just have one match, but its a big one with regionally and nationally ranked LaVerne coming up from California.

Also, as we've been playing, we've had a few Whitties of the Week, so check out their links on the blog!

Best,
Coach John