The Stag-Hen tournament is one of the best tournaments of the year. We have played it a few times, and if memory serves me correct, we have only won it one time in it's 9 year history. We entered the tournament as the number 3 seed, behind Claremont and Pomona-Pitzer. The Stag Hen always fields a very strong contingent of teams which makes the tournament very challenging, but, it also tests your mental and physical stamina. The Stag-Hen is a 2 day tournament which means that teams will have to play 2 very difficult matches in one day with the finals being played on Day 2. This can be a very taunting task because there is relatively no recovery time. Teams that win this event are obviously talented, but more importantly, they usually are the teams that are in the best physical and mental condition.
Our first match was against a very scrappy team from Case Western that had a very strong showing at the ITA national indoors, capturing 3rd place. They have proven this season to be very strong in doubles and I knew going into this match that we would need to come out strong in doubles so that Case would not get any momentum going into singles. Fortunately, our guys were much more focused than our doubles start against APU. Scotty and James at number 1 doubles faced off against the number 3 nationally ranked doubles team. They came out really strong and ended up getting us a big point winning 8-4. Omsky and Harrington got off to a slow start but made a big comeback only to fall short in the tiebreaker. Rafe and Jonathan at the 2 dubs played well and got us the very important 2nd point.
When you go up 2-1 after doubles it takes so much pressure off the guys heading into singles. Rafe had mentioned to me the day before that his singles record at the Stag Hen over the past 3 years was not good. This did not seem to bother him going into the singles against the number 3 ranked player from last year. Rafe was on point the entire match notching a straight set win. Aman, at 3 singles, began to find his form and notched us our 4 point. Harrington and Goodman also played well earning our 5th and 6th points. It was a good match for us, but now we had a 2 hour turn around before our afternoon match against Pomona.
Pomona-Pitzer played at ITA Indoor Nationals in February. They did not have the best tournament, but, when you factor in the travel from the west coast and also the fact they never play inside, you can understand their results. Pomona-Pitzer is a dangerous team, especially on their home courts, so I knew we were in for tough match. Our doubles got off to slow start. We found ourselves down and early break at 1 and 3 doubles. At 2 doubles, Rafe and Jonathan, were on point securing an early break. As the doubles matches progressed it looked like we were going to go down 2-1. We were down at 1-4 at 1 and 3 doubles, and up 5-3 at 2 doubles. And then, the heavens opened up and dumped a heavy dose of rain. LA is in a severe drought so it was an amazing occurrence for this to happen. Fortunately, it couldn't happened at a better time. That night during our team meeting we talked about how the rain stymied PP momentum and that we could regain our footing the next morning.
Our match resumed the next morning. 1 dubs started out strong and began to stage a comeback. 2 doubles got off to a slow start, and at one point, found themselves down 6-5. At the 3 doubles, you could feel the momentum starting to shift in our favor, even though they were down 5-2. Our level at 1 doubles was much better than the day before, but they ended up losing 8-5. Rafe and Jonathan, regained their footing after losing 3 straight games. They clinched our first point winning 8-6. David and Andrew made a dramatic comeback and secured an important point by winning in a tiebreaker.
A 2-1 lead on a solid opponents home court is huge. As the singles matches started we won the first sets at 1, 3, 4, and 6 singles. Adrien, at 4 singles, was playing much better and he was able to secure us our 3rd point. Rafe, followed with a strong performance at 1 singles giving us 4-1 lead. That old cliche "it's never over till it's over" was very applicable for this match because PP began their comeback. Jonathan was definitely not sharp but he was also playing a very good player. PP won at 2 singles and closed out a great match at 5 singles against Josh Goodman. The momentum at this point had definitely shifted to PP favor. They won the 2nd sets at 6 and 3 singles.
Aman Manji was playing a very talented player at 3 singles and it didn't help that the crowd was sensing a comeback. Aman did a wonderful job of staying focused and not allowing the crowd to get into the third set. Aman won a decisive 3rd set securing us our 5th point.
I was very proud of our team battling back from a rain delay, a doubles deficit, and a home court advantage for our opponents. We had 2 hour rest before the playing the finals at CMS.
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