Growing in Wisdom - Lakeland Match

 Video

Varsity Recap
Rain came in the late part of the school day, but with much squeegeeing and an ever present leaf blower, the Bruins got the courts clear and ready to play. To open the season, we welcomed the Lakers of Lakeland High School. 

Announcing lineups and the new team cheer got the Bruins off to a high energy and encouraging start, and that carried right into the varsity matches. We moved well early in the match and played with a lot of confidence from warmups right on through.

One place that this could be seen was the way we dominated the net. More on this below in another section, but all of the team seemed ready to push to the net and gain an advantage. We found angles and played with great touch. Ethan and Judah especially showed nice instincts for when to push to the net, and #2D could frequently be seen getting both players to the net. This pressure paid off, as the Lakers made either tentative errors or aggressive errors in trying to hit over and around us.

Also, this match started with our team serving really well. Especially across the singles courts, unreturned serves were the most common way for us to win points on serve. This allowed us to jump out to big leads in all the singles sets, and eventually close them out with relative ease.

It might seem like the Bruins were all offense tonight, but that wasn't really true. We actually were just doing a fantastic job of turning our defense into offense. The defense could be seen in full out sprints to retrieve drop shots, split step and quick shuffles to return overheads, and great returning were the hallmarks that set up our attacking all night long.

The matches all began ending around the same time, with the singles coming off the courts first - all with great wins. It was great to see #2D's follow, to the raucous cheers of their cheering section. That left  Malachi and Isaya to finish off. Their match was the closest of the night, as the Laker players had some big serves, and were serving well to force us into timid shots. In the end, it was our service games that carried us. We were able to avoid double faults and put in first serves when it mattered. Especially Isaya stepped it up late in a tight match, serving awesome to help set up the finishing volley from Malachi. So the Bruins swept to a 5-0 win.

JV Recap

The JV began with 9th grader Elias getting his first chance on the high school courts, and he started with a  victory. He moved quickly though his match, with solid serving and simple groundstrokes. His consistency is often the difference, but I loved to see him practicing what Coach Daniel taught last week about ripping second serves and using them to attack. Lucas Bateman did the same at #2SJV, especially on his forehand. Silas and Jordan put the finishing touches on a JV sweep, with strong serves and groundstrokes. I was impressed by the quality of our JV players.

Our JV is going to be really good this year, as I've often said we have a number of JV players who would play varsity in any other season. This is especially true because of the consistency with which we can get the ball back. The main ingredient to better play is to get more balls in the court, and we do that well.

It was also good to see our guys who didn't get a Lakeland match play a super competitive match against one another, before settling in together to eat some haystacks on the court. A great start!

WE CAN BE HUMBLE, BECAUSE WE BELONG: Moments of Belonging

Eating Together

It always makes me so grateful each season when we circle up on the court to eat our team meal together. Each person has a place in the circle, and it's a reminder about what tennis really is - an opportunity to deepen our relationships and have a group who knows us and loves us. Tonight there was laughter and joy, other nights there might be silence and sorrow, but the circle will be there. We will be there.

Singing Together

With a victory comes the song. I reflect on how this simple tune with nonsensical words (Sarasponda, sarasponda, sarasponda ret-set-set) can become a place of joy. On the bus ride home from a mid-season match 20 years ago, a 10th grader burst out with this 9th grade choir song, and everyone spontaneously joined in. Now two decades later, we won't end a match that we've won without the song. Just one moment of joy, shared with others, has spawned countless others. I love that! We got to pass the song on to some of our new 9th graders tonight :-)

WHEN WE ARE WISE: Wisdom is Playing the Percentages

Getting to the Net

We've learned from our drills and games - like Middle-Middle, Doubles Passing, and Running Doubles - that getting two players to the net is a high percentage play in doubles tennis. We know that in singles taking the mid-court ball and approaching puts us in a good place to win points at the net. So it was encouraging to see the whole varsity team make the net a priority. I think this was best seen at #2D. If you watch the highlights, Dom and Aaron are always looking to get on the front foot and get forward. But really, we liked seeing that throughout the lineup!

High Serve Percentage

We're a really good team when the point gets started well, and it was very encouraging to see a match at the beginning of the season with such a high serve percentage. Players hit good serves, but paired them with consistency - sometimes even choosing a second serve style shot as their first serve. This really kept the pressure on the returners. Especially in doubles, it was good to see Isaya and Aaron choose this strategy at times to put Malachi and Dominic in good positions to pounce on the returns. Especially in the close-out game at #1D, it was impressive to watch Isaya's high percentage serving!

Patience, Young Padawan

Matches, especially varsity matches, are long events. They have twists and turns of momentum, focus, and ways of play. As such, we have to be gentle with ourselves when we go through patches of mistakes. Sometimes we can call this "Robot Mode" as Daniel described to Judah last year, or we can "Be a goldfish" and forget the previous points to focus on the current one. Tonight, we made the mistakes of a first match. We had inconsistent play, sometimes made poor choices, or just felt rusty. But we can have patience with ourselves. I thought we did a good job of staying calm and performing in the big moments... the deuces, the ads, or the close out games. 

THEN WE ARE STRONG: Exceptional Outcomes

Sprinting to the Net
In Judah's match, his opponent had a decent forehand, but would sometimes frame things in odd ways that created unexpected bounces and angles. In the second set, a highly sliced forehand trickled from the Laker racket and landed for a perfect drop shot. Judah was caught at the baseline but took off in a sprint when he realized what happened. Playing good tennis, the Lakeland #2 moved forward to try to pick off the rising shot Judah would eventually flick over the net and put it away for a simple winner. But Judah's effort paid off, getting to the ball before it was basically on the court. He was able to poke a line drive passing flick across the court, surprising the Laker player with it's power. It bounced inside the right hand sideline for a sweet winner and a testament to hustle.

Big Time Defense

In Isaya and Malachi's match, offense was basically winning the day. The team with big serves or crunching net play was winning a high percentage of the points. But little moments of great defense were a huge difference. One came near the end of the first set. First, a hard serve drove Isaya back but he met it out in front and drove his return cross court. The Laker server then crushed a forehand, taking Isaya far off the court to his right hand side. Isaya dug and reached and popped a lob, unfortunately to the Laker net player. With time and open court, the Laker player slammed it to the open left baseline. But Malachi - would had shaded to the middle of the court when Isaya was drawn off of it - Malachi appeared out of nowhere, getting a racket on the ball easily and lifting another lob. This one was slightly deeper, and the Laker players were frustrated at not having already won the point. Their second overhead was drilled into the net and the scramble gave the Bruins the game. 

Prayer

God, we are asking for eyes to see ourselves like You do this season. To experience Your love through this sport and our teammates. Tonight was a beautiful answer to prayer, as we got to experience many gifts as the rain subsided and the weather cleared. Thanks for the wonderful night and help us to continue to see You in the year. Amen.

Scores

Varsity
#1S - Gideon Miller - 6-0, 6-0 - Mason Miller (11)

#2S - Judah Miller - 6-0, 6-0 - Matthew Miller (9)

#3D - Ethan Claassen - 6-0, 6-0 - Maxwell Mishler (11)

#1D - Malachi Yoder/Isaya Magatti - 6-3, 6-4 - Will Hofer (11)/Logan Curtis (11)

#2D - Dominic Ramer/Aaron Hochstetler - 6-0, 6-0 - Caleb Hahn (10)/Bradley Miller (9)

Junior Varsity

#1SJV - Elias Magatti - 6-0 - William Berrick (10)

#2SJV - Lucas Bateman - 6-0 - Atreyu Ramachandron (9)

#1DJV - Silas Martin/Jordan Hochstedler - 6-0 - William Berrick (10)/Atreyu Ramachandron (9)