My Top Ten Tennis State Tournament Memories#10 : DeKalb vs. Angola, 1996 : My first Sectional as a player, lost my only match and realized the intensity picks up at this time of the year.
#09 : Goshen vs. Bethany Christian, 2003 : My first Sectional as a coach, lost my first match and realized you can't win with just emotion, you have to build talent.
#08 : NorthWood vs. DeKalb, 2007 : After losing in the Sectional final to NorthWood, we went to the Regional and watched them almost beat DeKalb. That's when we knew we were an upper level program too.
#07 : Seth Troyer and Jordan Mumaw's Individual Run : Won the Individual Sectional at #1 doubles, and advanced to play LaPorte. LaPorte was 18-3 and we were 9-8, but we only lost 4-6, 4-6.
#06 : Howe Military vs. Angola, 1998 : I won 9 straight games in this first round matchup without losing a point, until I double-faulted! That's a golden set for you counting at home.
#05 : NorthWood vs. Bethany Christian, 2007 : Our first Sectional final, and a day we learned that it takes intensity and talent to win a Sectional. We fell but only 3-2.
#04 : Fairfield vs. Bethany Christian, 2008 : The match we almost choked. Take nothing for granted, we beat them 5-0 only ten days before, and were down 1-5 in a third set with a chance to lose. Thank goodness we didn't.
#03 : Goshen vs. Bethany Christian, 2007 : To reach the Sectional final, we defeated Goshen 3-2 as Johnny and Jeremy fought off three match points in a third set tiebreaker to seal our victory.
#02 : Fairfield vs. Bethany Christian, 2007 : Having lost 5-0 in the regular season, we were down 2-1 in the team match, and Jonny Shenk and Luke Hostetter were both down a set in the matches remaining on the court. Two third set comebacks later, we had defeated the Sectional favorite and won our first Sectional match.
#01 : NorthWood vs. Bethany Christian, 2008 : We caught our breath, upped our intensity and turned around the 2007 result. And we got to hold up Bethany Christian's first tennis Sectional championship, a feeling I look forward to again!
That's interesting that you liked the Northwood DeKalb match in 2007. I thought Northwood should have won, and that we could have beaten DeKalb. It was about the same feeling as watching the regional final the year after that. In both cases it seemed the team that beat us had played a lot better. And in both cases I wished I was playing, and not watching.
ReplyDeleteAmen, Daniel. Watching is hard, which is why coaching is often much more "gray-hair-inducing" than playing :-)
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