Moments of Beauty: Jimtown

Moment of Beauty #1: Daniel Robles
How can I describe how beautiful this whole match was? It's hard to encompass all the things that made this beautiful - a senior, playing only his third varsity match, struggling at times in practice with keeping his level going all the way through challenges - this player wins the match for the varsity! But to boil it down to one beautiful moment, my favorite was Daniel's overhead. Seth has worked with him in many practices on how to hit that overhead, making it simple by reminding Daniel to point at the ball, time it, and then smash it. Many players ignore the coaching advice to point at the ball, thinking it to be too elementary our something. But Daniel didn't. Late in the final set, as Daniel was down 6-5, he attacked to the backhand and a lob went up close to the net. Daniel's left hand shot into the air to track that ball, and I knew his overhead was going to end the point. Sure, enough he whipped that racket almost hook shot style over his head and pounded down the first point of his comeback. I love it!

Moment of Beauty #2: Dustin Miller
After Lane got the sweet shots to end the tiebreak against Goshen, Dustin attacked the net the end their 3 set match against Jimtown. With Lane serving, up 5-3, Dustin got three net putaways to finish off the Jimmies. The one that sticks in my mind was a simple one. After Lane's serve, Lane put his next groundstroke deep. Dustin had backed up toward the service line until the ball was able to get past the Jimmie net man, then Dustin moved forward to cut off the net and the next ball. Sure enough, it came to his backhand as he moved forward. With a quick step to his right, Dustin extended his backhand volley and kept his momentum going forward. His placement of the volley was perfect, right down the middle, splitting the Jimtown opponents. The volley was solid, hitting near the service line and bouncing low. The Jimmie back player could not reach it before it bounced again. It was beautiful smaggression to close out the match!