Rochester Match Report

To start the Concord Invite, we drew against the most inexperienced team in the draw, the Rochester Zebras. Last season we had defeated the Zebras 4-1, and they had lost their top two players. With our team returning everyone, we expected to have a similar result this year.

The Rochester squad is very young and has good talent. They hit the ball well, but it seems that they can't quite finish points and games off. We got off to a good start at every position, taking large leads at every position except number one doubles, where we were still resting senior captain Johnny Kauffman.

At number one singles, Luke Hostetter cruised through a two set match finding heart-breaking winner after heart-breaking winner against Rochester sophomore Max Hsu. Max had faced Jonny Shenk in last years tournament and suffered a similar fate. Though much improved, he couldn't seem to find an answer for Luke's attacking style in this match. What impressed me most was Luke's ability to win points in a variety of ways, a key for him when he is playing well. A point to illustrate this was when Luke and Hsu were both at the net. In the Goshen match, Luke had pounded a low shot at Mac Hussey forcing an error from a similar position, while today Luke popped a lob over Hsu's head landing just inside the baseline.

At two singles, Jared Schwartzentruber started the day off with a beauty of a match. Jumping out to a 3-0 lead, Jared piled on the pressure and let Ryan Bohr make most of the mistakes. But the part that was nice to see for me was the well-timed attacks of the net and the smart shots played once Jared got there. At one point, Jared looked to have a tough overhead very close to the net, and instead of going for power and intimidation Jared opted for touch and placement, slicing a ball softly to the other side of the court where Bohr could not reach.

Jonny Shenk dominated from start to finish in his match against varsity newcomer Jacob Schroder. Jonny hit the ball very well throughout the match despite the frustrating reality that he wasn't going to get to play very many long points. After several strokes Schroder's groundstrokes often failed him and he gave Jonny many free points off of errors. It was a good match however to warm up Jonny's swing for the rest of the day. The entire match was completed in 35 minutes.

In the doubles, the two doubles pair of Ben Mast and Daniel Buschert continued the good start to the season that position has had. They quickly took the first set 6-0, and then stepped off the gas a bit in the second to allow 2 games for the Zebra freshmen Travis Wottring and Aaron Stuart. Especially impressive was the net game of Mast, according to teammate Seth Krabill, "I forget what a good volleyer Ben is." Maybe this is because this was Ben's first doubles match at the varsity level.

One doubles was a bit closer in the first set but never really in doubt. Mikey Kelly and Jeremy Thomas played a similar first set to the one that they had played against Goshen on Thursday. Feeling a little bit tight because of the closeness of the match, they were able to relax after taking a 4-3 lead in the set, and cruised to close out the set 6-1, and then take the second set 6-1.


Dual moment of beauty for this match. Jeremy and Daniel both win for the same shot hit simultaneously in the course of their matches. Jeremy set the winning shot up with a backhand a first overhead and then finally a finishing overhead, while Daniel's overhead winner was set up by a deep groundstroke by teammate Ben Mast. At precisely the same time however, Jeremy crushed his overhead down into the court and then up over the fence and Daniel used his strength to do exactly the same. It was a sweet statement on our attacking ability during this match.

Scores

Luke Hostetter - 6-0, 6-0 - Max Hsu (10)
Jared Schwartzentruber - 6-2, 6-0 - Ryan Bohr (11)
Jonny Shenk - 6-0, 6-0 - Jacob Schroder (9)
Jeremy Thomas/Mikey Kelly - 6-4, 6-1 - Cameron Screeton (10)/Cody Hershberger (10)
Daniel Buschert/Ben Mast - 6-0, 6-2 - Travis Wottring (9)/Aaron Stuart (9)