Monday Morning Match Memories

In 2006, we had a couple of rain outs, and so we needed to pick up some matches in order to reach our full allotted complement of matches. We picked up South Bend Riley, and won a 4-1 home match over the Wildcats. And we also picked up New Prairie.

The Cougars are a school located in New Carlisle. We traveled over to play them, and the bus ride was gray and under threat of rain the whole way. In fact, we were told that we shouldn't even bother going over, because rain was a certainty. But I was tired of rain, and I wanted to see us play tennis, and I thought this was going to be a great close match. So we drove.

And we played. Boy, did we come off the bus playing. At four of the five positions, we churned through quick first sets. We were really playing good tennis, and all positions but #3 singles found themselves with one set leads.

This was the first match that I can remember thinking Luke Hostetter was going to be a dominating #1 singles player, as he breezed through a first set against a solid #1 in the Cougars Rich Kaminski. I can also remember worrying whether Jared Schwartzentruber was ever going to live up to his potential, because he seemed so mentally frail and was being picked apart by a weaker opponent (for the answer to the question though, see Jared's 19-3 senior season!)

After rolling through the first sets, I ran around and tried to rally guys energy for the second sets. Mostly, I got a bunch of bored, lazy eyes without much life. The easy first sets had made us drop our energy and interest, and it felt as if we assumed we'd march through the seconds as we did the firsts.

Wrong. Well, sort of. Luke is one of the best in Bethany tradition of finishing someone when they are down, and he just kept on picking up the level of his play. His second set ended faster than his first. But not so much at other spots.

Wes Klassen had won his first set 6-1. All the sudden, senior Mike Hans put together a run based off of Wes' errors and won the second 6-2. At #1 doubles, Jordan Kauffman and Johnny Kauffman had powered their way to a 6-1 first set. Letting off the gas and the aggression, they allowed Mason Laureys and Jared Emmons to take a second set lead. When they Johnny and Jordan tried to turn it back on it was gone. And at #3 singles, Jared Schwartzentruber dug in, determined to fight back from losing 1-6 in the first set. He drove hard, but fell in a tiebreaker to give us our first team loss.

#2 doubles picked up a second win after Luke's, so it all came down to the matches going into three sets... #1 doubles and #2 singles. At #1 doubles, Johnny and Jordan began to get frustrated as they couldn't bump their level of play up to match where it had been in the first set. In addition, their opponents, Laureys and Emmons, picked it up big time. Buoyed by their second set comeback, the Cougars' doubles team attacked the net and were gifted nervous errors by Johnny and Jordan. So that match came to a disappointing end.

Wes Klassen, however, had found his game again in the 3rd set. But so had his opponent, Mike Hans. With the rain threatening us, the #2 singles match went on and on. Neither player was a power hitter, but neither were they making many mistakes. So back and forth went well stroked shots... until they began to get tired and tight. With the match heading to the 5-4 area, nervous errors and looped shots started to creep in. So Hans went on the aggressive. He began to attack the net more, which forced a couple more errors from Wes. Despite a well-played 3rd set, Wes fell 5-7.

The moral of the story is that you cannot let up in the game of tennis. We won first sets by scores of 6-2, 6-1, 6-1, and 6-2. It looked like a simple match, and we lost our aggression and energy, and therefore we lost our edge. And that edge is hard to get back. So let's learn to be smart and aggressive at all times, and not take our matches for granted.