The Season: Part Seven

From our place of injury and lack of confidence, the season started. Our first match was a home match against Northridge. I thought that this was a critical match for us on the season, really showing us how we would do throughout the season. We had lost to Northridge 3-2 the year before, and this year we had everyone coming back so...

But of course, we weren't at full strength. We were missing Mikey and Johnny, and I was pretty sure Luke wasn't confident in taking on Jeff George, Northridge's #1, a player that he had beaten in an epic match the year before.

Looking back on the season from November, I realize now that I made a mistake. I wanted to set up our lineup so that we would have a chance to win. So I took Jared and put him in the number one doubles spot. Just as an aside, Jared had never played doubles in his entire career at Bethany. I don't even think he had played doubles on JV his freshman year. I moved Ben Mast up from the JV to play three singles, because Jonny Shenk was playing number two singles. And Seth Krabill filled in for Mikey at number two doubles.

Number two doubles ended up being no problem, but my other "brilliant" changes didn't work out so well. Jared had trouble adjusting to doubles, and so he and Jeremy Thomas lost the first set 1-6. Jared and Jeremy got it together for the second set, but still lost 4-6. Jared then went on to win 19 of his 21 singles matches on the season. So, yea, probably would have been better served leaving the lineup alone and just substituting for our injured players.

It an indication of my lack of confidence and desperation at the beginning of the season as well. I felt like I had to do something tricky and different with our lineup in order for us to defeat a team like Northridge. I felt like we would lose if we just simply lined up in our normal fashion and played them. Now I am ashamed to think about that. Jared could have played against Northridge's number two and won. Jonny could have won at number three and we still should have been able to pull off two doubles. But I was afraid, we changed what we did, and it didn't work.

Our JV used this match as a precursor to their season as well. With two of their better players representing the varsity (Ben Mast and Seth Krabill), they still pulled off a 4-3 victory (and that included a loss by a left-handed Mikey Kelly). This was the first of several statements of certainty that the JV made about their team. What I mean by that is that the JV knew, even after this first match, that they were good and that they could play with anyone. They were certain of who they were, what their ability was and what they could accomplish.

They continued these statements in the early part of the season. They crushed Goshen in their next match, went an amazing 17-0 as a team at the Jimtown Invitational. At that Jimtown Invite we took on teams like Jimtown and Concord, teams we typically don't beat, and the JV was not only winning, but winning easily. It simply reinforced the image they had of themselves.

For the varsity, it was lack of certainty that plagued the team early in the season. With the injuries, we were unsure of what we could be after the Northridge match. We had a couple of easy matches, then played Concord. There was uncertainty throughout the lineup in that match. Jared Schwartzentruber played absolutely incredible tennis, making a statement about his confidence for the season. Luke, Daniel and Mikey, and Johnny and Jeremy all started out shaky and a bit unsure. It was something that we would have to work through the rest of the month of August. We lost first sets in 4 of the 5 matches to Concord, but then recovered and won second sets in 2 of them. But for Luke and number two doubles, the uncertainty showed up again in the third set tiebreakers.

Whenever the team was uncertain, we would become tentative. That's the nature of tennis, you get it in your mind that you don't want to lose instead of that you want to win. Now, at the time I didn't know Luke was dealing with injury too, but both positions looked tentative in the tiebreakers. We lost them both. We weren't convinced yet of how good we were.

We skated through the rest of the month of August relatively unchallenged. Many of the teams we played have given us great battles in the past (Fremont, Triton), but this season we were just too strong. Still, these teams weren't state ranked quality teams, ones that we had thought at the beginning of the season that we could play with. So we were winning but still unsure of our abilities, or at least that's how I read most of the players to feel.

But that changed at the beginning of September, with one comment from a coach and one well-played team match. But that's for part eight...