Oct. 21, 2008

This past weekend three members of the Viking Men's tennis team travelled to Columbus, Ohio to compete in the ITA Midwest Regional Championships, hosted by Ohio State University. Myself, Phil Orno and Ryan Hamning made the 2-hour van ride down there accompanied by Assistant coach Mark Barry. The 2-hour van ride was a welcome change to the 15-hour journey the 3 of us endured driving to Tulsa, Oklahoma 2 weeks earlier for the All-American Championships.

This tournament is contested by the top players from all NCAA Division 1 institutions in the Midwest Region, and most notably this includes all the Big Ten teams except Penn State. A spot in this draw is determined by a player's recent success and results and places in it are limited and given out sparingly after a lengthy committee decision process. Therefore, upon arrival at the tournament hotel on Wednesday night, it was great to see conference rival UIC's team checking in with only 2 player as opposed to our 3 Vikings....it's always nice to get one over on them!!

So early Thursday morning we arrive at the courts still asleep at 715 am for practice. Myself and Ryan had our first round qualifying matches that morning. Our draws were favorable as we both avoided seeded players in the first round; Ryan being drawn against a player from Western Illinois and I was drawn against a player from DePaul. Ryan was up first for us and played a tough match, through a painful back injury, but fell just short, losing 7-6 6-3. After Ryan it was my turn. It didn't start too well for me as I raced to a 40-0 lead in the first game only to lose the next 5 points and get my serve broken right away...it's always great when that happens!! Anyway, I managed to turn it around and take the match 6-4 7-6. In the second round I got a rematch with the number 2 seed, a player from Indiana University that had crushed me the week before in Louisville. But this week was indoors so I fancied my chances a little better. I was further motivated to play well because I felt a little hard done by the week before by a close line call or two on his part but was determined not to let that be a factor this week. My extra motivation seemed to pay off as I played the best match of my life to win 6-3 6-3. It was such a satisfying win and quite possibly the biggest win of my career. It is such a great feeling to beat players from those Big Ten schools because you can tell they expect to beat you just because of where we are from but the satisfaction gained from taking the smiles off their team's faces when you proceed to crush them is fantastic!!

The next morning we were back at the courts at 715 am to practice again for my 8 am match. Those early matches have always been my favorites! I find I have to wake up at least 2 and half hours before my match starts so that my body has time to get going so that morning the alarm went off at 530 am and I was out running 2 miles in the dark and freezing cold 10 minutes later...how enjoyable! My match on Friday was against a guy from the University of Minnesota, another Big Ten school. I played well again but just fell short, losing 6-4 6-4. So, he proceeded into the main draw instead of me.

That afternoon Ryan and Phil were scheduled to play doubles. The decision about whether Ryan would play with his back injury was up in the air for a while that day but he decided to get some treatment from the trainer and stick it out. Ryan and Phil were drawn to play a team from Indiana so we smelt another victory to rub salt into their wounds from my win the night before. Ryan and Phil played great and took the match 8-5. The second round followed shortly against a team from Ohio State. Again, the Viking duo played good doubles but fell 8-5.

So, Saturday came around and Phil, who had been patiently waiting for the Main Draw to start, finally got to play singles. He was drawn against a qualifier from the University of Illinois. It started great for Phil as he took an early break of serve advantage but then his opponent started hitting monster forehands to which nobody would have been able to respond to! Phil eventually fell 6-4 6-2.

So, our time in Columbus was over and we hit the road to head back reflecting on what had been a great weekend to be a Viking tennis player. We achieved 2 wins over Big Ten opponents and lost close ones to 3 others. The gap between the Horizon League and the Big Ten is definitely getting narrower. And the weekend was made sweeter by seeing that out of all the teams representing the Horizon League there, the Vikings produced the best results. This bodes well for the upcoming spring season as we attempt to retain our Conference championship.

The tournament was a lot of fun and Coach Barry was not only a great coach on the court for us but also great company. Coach Barry's experience as a top player in the Big Ten helped us compete hard with guys at that level this weekend, so thanks a lot coach....you're the man!! Well that's it from me, next up for us is the Western Michigan Invitational on 1-2 November. As always, GO VIKES!