Monday Morning Match Memories

MMMM #3: Bethany Christian vs. Fairfield, 2004

Well, a new year and its time for another Joel King story. Instead of a Triton team victory, this match was a sparkle of light in a dreary year. In 2004, my Bruin team of mostly underclassmen slumped to their worst record, 6-11 (10-11 if you include Howe Military and the Laville Invitational). There were some bad losses in the year, including falling to Fremont (1-4), Lakeland (2-3), Rochester (2-3), and others. This of infamous meltdowns, but those are a worse memory for a grayer day.

The one constant throughout this season was Joel King. He could almost always be counted on to get us one point. So entering this match against Fairfield, I wasn't real hopeful for a team victory, but I did want Joel to prove his worth against a very difficult opponent. So we took to the old Bethany courts, lined with cracks and colored old school red and green, to see if Joel could pull out what would be considered an upset.

The match started out well enough for Joel. Both he and Stutzman played similar styles. They hustled like crazy and had solid groundstrokes, but weren't going to overpower each other. This made for a long match filled with patient points. In much the style of a modern Luke Hostetter drama, many of the other matches were finishing as Joel and Marc neared the end of their first set. It had been a back and forth time, with Joel finally taking the 5-4 lead and serving for the set.

Joel played his way to a good situation in the final game, battling through several long points without tensing up and without becoming too defensive. But with a set point at hand, 40-15, his nerve cracked a bit and he began to aim and place the ball. Stutzman took advantage of this and attacked, winning the point and bringing the game score to 40-30. Joel took his first serve on the next game point and hit the most incredibly lucky shot I've seen yet.

These were the courts of old, and right in the middle of the service box of the number one singles court was a crack. It wasn't huge, but it was large enough to make the ball hop or change direction a bit. It didn't usually come into play because it wasn't near the back of the service box, therefore someone would have to have major topspin or a dinky serve to hit it. Well, in his tension Joel hadn't hit one of his boomers, and his serve caught the crack. And it didn't bounce at all. It rolled straight back to Stutzman where he tried to scrape the ball off the ground and fling it over.

I had been looking right at the point, and was prepared to offer a do-over. But Coach Filbrun had been watching as well. "Play the cracks," he said to the dismay of his number one player. And so Joel took the first set 6-4 on the flukiest shot I've ever been witness to.

The second set continued the same theme, as far as competiveness is concerned. Stutzman continued to be aggressive when able, and the match teeter-tottered back and forth with every game. Joel was also a master of smaggression, and so he worked Stutzman with long rallies on every point. The other matches all finished up and left us just watching Joel, fighting for our one and only point from the match. As the second set drew to a dramatic close, darkness was becoming an issue. Someone suggested shining car lights on the court, but we knew from our first midnight practice that car lights on the court just got in your eyes and made it harder to see. The tiebreak started with both players straining for light. It the dusk, in another stroke of luck, it was Stutzman who played the cracks well, bouncing one sideways to take a 6-3 lead in the tiebreak. He then closed out the set, leaving us split sets and no idea how to finish without lights.

So load up the buses, the match is moving to Goshen College. Joel and Marc road along with teammates and parents and the whole throng moved a mile down State Road 15 to watch the fascinating finish. It didn't disappoint.

Predictably, the momentum that Stutzman had grabbed by winning the second set was drained by the move to the college. So without momentum playing a factor, the match settled back into its back and forth rhythm. Towards the end of the match, Joel began to pick up the momentum finally. Under the lights, Joel was able to seal the third set, 6-4, and continue to build the legend that is Joel King's legacy to the Bethany program.

Sometime, in another post, I want to explore that legacy of Joel King. It has been foundational to what we've built as far as the current Bethany Christian tennis system. And I'd also like to look at what it looks like mentally to always be coming back and winning big matches and succeeding in pressure spots. We've had others cut out of the same mold, but Joel kind of launched that attitude in Bruin tennis. This was just another of his epic victories. Here is my way of "enshrining"
it for all of you.

FINAL SCORE: Joel King defeats Marc Stutzman, 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-4