Bethany Christian vs. Mishawaka

So, after a schedule error that had parents and players confused, we made it to Mishawaka only two minutes late. Just over an hour later, the match wrapped up, we sang Sarasponda and headed home with a victory.

Mishawaka's new coach greeted us warmly, but had bad news as one of his singles players was ineligible for the match. So he had done some last second swinging around of a lineup that had challenged John Glenn over the weekend, only losing 3-2. He had to mess up some of his doubles teams, and only had one JV player eligible to play.

We took to the red and gray courts after a ten minute warmup and began our play. The Mishawaka team was young and lacked experience at most positions. One thing that they did have, at almost all positions, was the amazing capability to lob.

Ben Mast found this out early in his match. He faced off against senior Adam Barnhart, whose game relied on consistency but very little power. As Ben tried to dictate the points from the baseline and from the net, he more than once found himself backed up with a beautifully weighted lob, falling just inside the baseline. Barnhart had such good hands, even balls hit with pace were coming back to Ben. So Ben started to find more tight angles. This allowed Ben to pile up the winners, as Barnhart struggled to run down all the great shots Ben hit. In the end, Ben was not challenged but got a good match in preparing and having to put the ball away.

Seth Krabill's match at #2 singles was eerily similar to Ben's. Sophomore Bobby LeRoy made Seth work for every point, and at the beginning of the match, Seth let his feet get a little lazy in getting to the loping balls that LeRoy was hitting. Seth found himself leaning back and not preparing early for his shots, and as a result they started flying long. With a quick pep talk and a new attitude, Seth zinged back to life on the court. Soon his feet were finding their position and his shots were zipping across the net, pinning LeRoy deep in the court. After the early stretch of weary feet, Seth rolled off 10 straight games for a 6-2, 6-0 victory.

At #1 doubles, Mikey Kelly and Kyle Miller did Seth two better. They reeled off 12 straight games, without dropping any, to post a double bagel on the night: 6-0, 6-0. It's always a beautiful scoreline, and Mikey and Kyle deserved their reward. Beautiful serves and volleys were the shots of the night, with Kyle using great placement and Mikey playing with his typical power. Mishawaka also had a freshman playing his first match at #1 doubles, and their were times when it was obvious he was over his head.

At #2 doubles, Austin Loucks and Nick Rebec played a doubles team that came with Austin's "high recommendation." Jameson Jones and Nick Hoover were the opponents, and they were very good-natured about a match that didn't go all that well for them. Austin's serve especially was just too well hit and with too much pace for them to handle. I felt the worst in the match when Austin frame one of his powerful serves and hit one of his opponents in the stomach. After the match, I overheard one of Mishawaka's players calling Austin and Nick "testosterone-filled monsters." That's how I've always though of Nick as well.

Russell played the #3 singles position tonight against sophomore Andrew Laubner. It was a solid match in which Russell struggled to find a strategy that worked well. Russell's typical singles strategy is to get the ball back more than his opponent, but that seemed to be Laubner's strategy as well. This led to some long points and some frustration on Russell's part, as he had to attack to get any advantage. He did a good job figuring this out however, and despite a close opening of the first set, Russell breezed through much of the rest of the match.

In the JV matchups, Matt Ebersole and Ike Lehman faced freshamn Brandon Lewis. Both Bruins came away with victories, but I was especially impressed with Matt's ability to move and hit consistent groundstrokes even when his opponent was not hitting with pace. At this point in the season, Matt may be the most improved JV player from last year to this year.

Ike Lehman may be the fastest improving freshman, as he is really starting to figure out both sides of his swing. Tonight provided his first victory, as his dad snapped pictures for the school, capturing the moment forever. Oh, so cute. Okay, for real, Ike played a solid match, confident and keeping the ball in the court. That was good to see.

It was good to play a match against Mishawaka after starting off the season with traditional local powers Northridge and Concord. Sometimes we can feel as though we are not very good when we play the best two teams on our schedule within the first three matches. Getting some wins in shows us where we really stand. Now, we can continue to improve and climb the ladder, so that we can challenge the better teams by season's end.


Varsity: There is one automatic moment of beauty for this match. I don't think anyone can really appreciate how fulfilling and difficult it is to actually post a 6-0, 6-0 score. In other words, all of us were talented enough today to win 6-0, 6-0, but only one team did. So that is a beautiful work of concentration, footwork, effort and more.

But the most memorable shot of the day, the one that we will talk about for the rest of the season? Definitely Austin's serve that hit the Mishawaka player in the stomach. Graciously, Austin refused to take the point, even though it was officially his. In this point, there was a combination of things I actually like... aggressive serve, generosity towards opponents, concern for others, moving on to the next point... but pretty much it was funny. So I won't call it beautiful, but it will be memorable.

JV:
You what is beautiful? When people listen to their coaches. In the JV match between our own team, I saw Himal King practicing the service form that we went over during Friday's practice. I was so happy; it seems silly but people often don't understand the importance of doing exactly what the coaches say. It was maybe my moment of most pride in this match, and it didn't even come as we played another team!


Scores

Varsity
#1S - Ben Mast - 6-1, 6-1 - Adam Barnhart (12)
#2S - Seth Krabill - 6-2, 6-0 - Bobby LeRoy (10)
#3S - Russell Klassen - 6-2, 6-1 - Andrew Laubner (10)
#1D - Mikey Kelly/Kyle Miller - 6-0, 6-0 - Anthony Tomlinson (12)/Andrew Furlow (9)
#2D - Austin Loucks/Nick Rebec - 6-0, 6-1 - Jameson Jones (12)/Nick Hoover (10)

JV
#1SJV - Matt Ebersole - 8-0 - Brandon Lewis (9)
#2SJV - Ike Lehman - 8-3 - Brandon Lewis