Let me begin by mentioning that yesterday, in our match versus Lander University, I witnessed something for the first time as a college coach...
We arrived nice and early at Francis Marion University where we were to play our neutral site match against the #11 ranked Lander tennis men. We needed to get a good warm up as we were back playing out of doors which is something we have not really been able to do since coming back from Las Vegas weeks ago. Also, we had not been able to play Wednesday as it was a travel day for us. Of course, we knew very well that Lander is a great team and one that was hungry to upset us and move themselves up in the rankings. I just did not want a repeat of what happened against ACU where we got off to a terrible start and were not able to recover.
Well, sadly the worst happened. We got off to a terrible start again. We just flat out did not play well during the doubles matches. Lander was up to the task and took advantage of our miscues. We lost all three matches which is usually a death blow. I have never witnessed a team comeback from a 3-0 deficit in all of my years of coaching. I know it has happened a few times, but never at Concordia. Not exactly where we wanted to be for sure.
The tide turned. The team was probably expecting a pre-singles lecture from the coaching staff highlighted by plenty of curse words. However, we didn't give them one. Trying to stay positive, we knew that we lost the doubles simply because we didn't play well, not because Lander was so much better than us and not because we played without effort.
Wouldn't you know it, we got off to a great start in the singles and raced out to first sets on 5 of 6 courts. Tamas was struggling a bit with his health and was feeling dizzy and breathless. He lost his first set. Shortly thereafter, we had three points on the board as Andreas was back to himself wining in under an hour at #6. Andrey also quickly dispatched the #5 ranked player for our second point. Next off was Dani with a routine win to even the match at 3-3. Geza, playing #3, was next off to give us the 4-3 lead. G really played nicely and fought back from a 5-2 deficit in the second to win it 7-5. David, who had won his first set dropped the second and went to a third. Luckily, the new balls allowed him to speed up the game and he won it 6-0 to complete the comeback. Tamas was still battling as usual and took his match to the third set. He seemed to feel better as the match went on and fought his way to a victory. The match was over for a 6-3 win. Not too shabby. I really thought that Lander was a great team and a bunch of classy young men. This starts at the top with the coach. I am sure that we will see them again in Florida for the Nationals.
I was really proud of the guys today and learned a lesson about staying positive. Most of us enjoyed a nice dinner at Ruby Tuesdays later that evening highlighted by a nice free piece of New York cheesecake. I think the team made a new friend in our waitress.
Today we play our host and 14th ranked Francis Marion University. They were watching our match pretty closely yesterday and enjoyed our long afternoon in the sun. I know that their coach, Garth Thomson, who is a really nice man by the way, will have them ready to play. We will need to show the same toughness we showed in Florida to get the win. The match is set to begin at 2pm.
Sleep is not coming easily here for me. Coach T. continues the chainsaw-like snoring, the room alarm clock sounded at 5:15am on Thursday prompting me to rip it out of the wall and hurl it across the room, and Coach T's watch alarm went off this morning at 5am for no good reason. You might be thinking that Neil wanted to get up for an early morning jog or gym appearance. Absolutely not! I think he would sleep all day if I let him.
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Nuff said...
