The weather was beautiful, the competition was fierce, the team had a blast, and the parent support was terrific. We stayed in condos overlooking the courts and right on the beach-awesome! There were a couple of matches that I wished the ball bounced the other way, but other than that it was a perfect spring break trip for the UW-Whitewater Men’s and Women’s teams! We played 11 matches down there, so I’ll just give the results and some re-caps of the most exciting match moments. But for all the individual scores you can go to:
We arrived on Friday, got settled and practiced. On Saturday, the men opened play with a pair of wins right off the bat against East Coast opponents Manhattanville (7-2) and Salem State (9-0), while the women continued to practice outdoor tennis.
On Sunday we had a terrific practice session on the clay courts of Shipyard, the international headquarters for the PTR. It was a beautiful setting and worked out perfectly, as we were able to continue to practice through the drizzle. On Sunday night we had our annual FUN mixed doubles tournament. Kalla Schaefer and Derek Taylor lived up to their #1 seed taking out Lauren Aguilar and Danny Glinert in the final. In the parent/coaches division Scott Foster/Jerry Aguilar took out Daniel Bickett and Paul Stensvaag in the final.
On Monday it was back to all business as both teams took on Allegheny (PA). Both teams played VERY well and seemed to be clicking on all cylinders against a traditionally strong team. The women won 9-0 and the men won 8-1. Monday night the team and parents (57 person party!) went to our home away from home down there, the Crazy Crab, and walked around Harbor Town.
On Tuesday it was an early morning match for both teams against DePauw, and the women capped off their double header with a 9-0 win over Principia. Against DePauw, the women lost 8-1 and the men 9-0, but if you look at the scores, you’ll see it was really a battle at many positions. The men had a chance to come out of doubles with a lead, but nothing went right down the stretch. At #1 it was a hard fought battle, but DePauw ended up getting the only break of the match. At #2, Scanlan/Hintz played some of their best tennis in the middle of the match to take a 7-4 lead. They had chances to serve for the match at 7-4 and 7-6, but DePauw was now the hot team and ended up winning 5 straight games to take the match. At #3 Harmatys/Krieger were also serving for it at 7-6, but got broken and lost in a tie-break. After that the steam was lost, and the team lost all singles matches in straight sets. The women started with singles. They lost the first three singles spots (Schaefer lost to a two time NCAA qualifier at #1), but then looked like they would tie it up with chances to win at 4,5 and 6. Smith played great at #6 winning in straight sets. Daciolas and Aguilar each had shots to win deep into their third sets, but lost 7-5 and 7-6 respectively in their third sets.
Tuesday night was our Wisconsin style Bar-B-Q at the park right on site, and that was a blast. In addition to the Sheboygan Brats, we had chicken, burgers, steak, hot dogs, etc! Mmmmmmm, good!
Wednesday was the day off of tennis for the team. We headed to Savannah for a day on the boardwalk. There are many wonderful shops and restaurants. We had ice cream on the river, courtesy of the Siemon Family (Thank you!), then cruised around and had dinner.
Thursday each team had double headers. The women first played a very tough D-2 team Erskine. We played a mixed lineup to stay fresh for the Carleton match, playing 11 players. The doubles did amazing taking a 2-1 lead. Syd Divelbiss was a two-time winner (singles and doubles), but the team ended up losing 3-6, despite a great all-around performance. At the same time, the men took out Principia 9-0 using 10 players. The excitement of the week was the afternoon double header as both men and women took on nationally ranked Carleton. The men started with doubles while the women started with singles. For the men, Caiati/Glinert won 8-2, while UWW lost leads again at #2 and #3 in great matches. The Hawks battled back in singles, however, Harmatys evened the match at 2-2, then we split at #5 and #6 leaving it 3-3. We needed two of the three very close matches remaining to win. Caiati was up 9-6 in his match tiebreak, but Winston Park came back for the win. Erik Scanlan played some of his best tennis of the season taking out Colin Russell, 7-5, 7-6 making it 4-4 with Danny Glinert in the deciding match tiebreak at #1 singles. Unfortunately Danny lost in a heartbreaker 10-8 giving Carleton the 5-4 win. At that very same time the women were also at 4-4 with the entire match hanging at the fate of our #1 doubles team. Schaefer/Daciolas played loose down the stretch with Daciolas dictating from the baseline and Schaefer flying around the net. It went back and forth until they pulled away at 7-7 for the 9-7 win giving UWW the 5-4 win. In singles the Warhawks swept the bottom in straight sets, while Carleton took the top 3 spots. The toughest match was Amy Siemon and Gudal as they battled to a third set 10-8 win for Carleton. In doubles our #2 team battled, but lost 9-7, while our #3 team of Rutkowski/Siemon cruised to an 8-2 win.
Next up for the Warhawks?? Big weekend for both teams! The men are at home all weekend and play Grinnell on Friday at 3:30, then have a varsity reserve match against Rock Valley Sat am at 9am. Then they wrap up the weekend with a match against Lawrence at 3pm on Sat. The women will be in the all important Midwest Invite. The invite is for the top 8 teams in the Midwest. Four of the teams are ranked in the nation’s top 10, and all eight are ranked in the top 26 nationally. The tournament is in nearby Madison, so we are hoping for a home court advantage. The matches will be played at Nielsen Tennis Stadium and Cherokee Country Club, so if you want to see some great tennis, stop on by. It is an 8 team bracket with all places 1st-8th played out, so we will be playing at 8am and 1pm on Friday, and around 8am on Saturday. The bracket is not out yet, so we do not know what location we are at yet. Check our website for locations and exact times as the tournament progresses.
