Lakeland Match Report

This match was our first of the day at Concord, in our second invitational at Concord. This team was the least challenging of the schools that were invited, and I think that it provided our team a warm-up for the rest of the tournament. We used to be in the Lakeland tournament several years ago, that consisted of Lakeland, Churubusco and Fort Wayne Elmhurst. This match showed me that if that tournament still existed, we'd have been champions by far.

There isn't too much to write about each match. Luke Hostetter was much better than his senior opponent, and Luke was able to serve and volley, approach and attack the net effectively throughout this match. Jared easily stroked his way to a 6-0, 6-0 win against an opponent who ran down every ball he could get to. Jonny breezed through the first set and ran into some trouble in the second when he tried to come to net to hastily, but was able to adjust his strategy and not lose another game. Doubles were almost complete sweeps, with one doubles falling in just one game. Everything about doubles was way too much for the Laker doubles crew. All four of our players had too big of serves, too aggressive styles of play, too much power, and the Laker's strokes couldn't hold out.

It is interesting. We often use our matches against big schools as a benchmark of how our program is growing and improving. Four years ago, at that Lakeland tournament, the Lakers defeated us 4-1. The year after that, we won, but only by a 3-2 margin with the victory coming down to two doubles. The year after that we squeaked out one more match to win 4-1. Two years later, we lost a team total of four games! It is another way to look at the progress we've made, teams we used to be close with (Fremont, Triton, Lakeland) we are absolutely blowing out of the water.

So it was a good start to the morning. Then we had to sit and wait for our Westview match...


The winner of the coveted award for the morning session must be Daniel Buschert, who early in this match set the tone by overheading a ball over the fence and into the wetlands down below. His dad went to go chase it and came back with four balls, but not the correct one. Nice job getting the ball wet Daniel, and showing your power in doing so.

Scores

Luke Hostetter - 6-0, 6-1 - Jake O'Brian (12)
Jared Schwartzentruber - 6-0, 6-0 - Shaun Kauffman (12)
Jonny Shenk - 6-0, 6-2 - Taylor Miller (10)
Johnny Kauffman/Jeremy Thomas - 6-1, 6-0 - Jon Boggs (10)/Zac Stanley (11)
Daniel Buschert/Mikey Kelly - 6-0, 6-0 - Casey Kilgore (12)/Adam Marchand (10)