We left warm Atlanta on Monday, March 7th, and traveled to cold and rainy LA. When we landed, I started thinking that this might be an omen of things to come, and then, we had to stand in line at the rent-a-car agency for 2 hours. Not a good start to the week. Fortunately, our traditional lunch at In and Out made me start to feel better.
Our spring break trip was very important because we wanted to keep the momentum going, and, as a coach, your always worried about chemistry, especially when you are spending an entire week with each other. Thankfully, we have a great group that genuinely enjoy spending time with each other.
We have played Azusa-Pacific University many times on our trips out to LA. APU is always loaded with talent and we have only beaten them once in 2006, when former number 1 player, Michael Goodwin, clinched the final point with a 3rd set tiebreak win. I had no idea how we would fare against APU with this team. As the doubles started we definitely looked flat. I had no idea if we were a little jet lagged or didn't believe we could beat them. We also had a new 3 doubles team, because David Omsky, had suffered a concussion against Sewanee so he we was sitting out. Alec Josepher, a very talented transfer from SMU, took his place.
We got off to a very slow start at 1 doubles. Scotty and James were playing a very strong team and really never found their footing. Rafe and Jonathan were in a battle at 2 doubles and Harrington and Josepher were playing together for the first time. On top of the slow start, the APU crowd was all over us. It was by far the most aggressive crowd this team had faced all season. We ended losing at 1 doubles and 3 doubles. Thankfully, 2 doubles clinched a very important point.
We got off to a slow start in singles dropping the first sets at 1,2,3,4,5. Harrington was locked in and took the first set at 6 singles. At this point, it looked pretty dim, but the boys started to rally. Rafe was playing one of the best players in NCAA D-2 and ended up losing. We found ourselves down 3-1, but we took the 2nd sets at 2 singles and 5 singles. Harrington was able to close his match out and you could feel the tide starting to turn. Jonathan was playing a very good player at 2 singles, but, I could see that his opponent was starting to get tired. Josh Goodman, at 5 singles, had a very slow start, but he was beginning to find his rhythm. Aman, was battling even though he was not sharp, and unfortunately, he lost which gave APU it's 4th point. We needed to sweep the remaining 3 matches at 2,4, and 5 singles. We looked in control at 2 and 5 singles, but Adrien Bouchet at 4 singles, found himself down a set and multiple match points. Adrien, is a very good competitor and found a way to come back and win the 2nd set. Jonathan pulled out the biggest win of his season at 2 singles. Josh's mental toughness enabled him to survive a slow start and eventually pull out a big win. Our match was tied at 4-4 with Adrien entering his 3rd set. Adrien had worn down his opponent by the 3rd set and you could tell that his opponent was out of gas. Adrien clinched the match enabling us to secure our first win against APU since 2006. The match was definitely not our best performance, but it proved to our guys that you can never give in, and when all the odds are stacked against you, keep fighting, which they did. It was also important for the team to see that they could handle having a crowd in there faces for an entire match.
On our day off, we ventured off to the BNP to watch the best players in the world play. The best part of the BNP was getting a chance to watch the pro's practice on the side courts.
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