A Learning Experience At The ITA's

The Pacific men's tennis team spent the weekend participating in the ITA Small College Regionals at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash. Head Coach Brian Jackson was kind enough to provide this first-hand evaluation of the weekend for a rather young Pacific lineup.

Even though none of our players made it deep into the tournament, it was still a long weekend for the men’s tennis team. The squad, composed of only freshmen and sophomores, sent six players to the tournament and came away with a couple of solid wins and some very good experience.

Rain was the theme of the weekend. With a draw of 64 singles players, and 32 doubles players and only four indoor courts, we knew we would be spending a lot of time at the courts. In fact, the tournament was supposed to start Saturday morning, but due to the threat of rain we began immediately upon arrival Friday evening. So, after the 5-hour bus ride to Walla Walla Friday afternoon, tennis started with a round of doubles. The team of Nhat Nguyen & Eric Furuya kicked the night off. Although they battled hard, but lost to a solid team from Linfield (8-1).

Next up, the first-year team of Spencer Hing & Micah Leo fought in a classic server’s match versus a team from Whitworth. After staying on serve throughout the match (and showing a great deal of potential) the team of freshmen was broken to lose the match 8-6.

Finally, our night ended with the team of returning players Michael Okada & Michael Kinghorn playing in a nail-biter. After trading service holds and breaks, the sophomores found themselves against the wall against a team of big servers from George Fox. Down 4-7, and on the brink of elimination...the Boxer team showed their determination by battling back to a tie-breaker at 8-8. With the back and forth continuing throughout the breaker, the Boxers came away victorious with a 10-8 decision.

Saturday was a long day of tennis. Beginning with warm-ups at 7 a.m., members of the Boxer squad were the first players on...and the last players off the court at 11 p.m. Although good overall efforts, three of the first four Boxer netters lost their opening singles matches in straight sets.

The match of the day was turned-in by the last Boxer player on the court Saturday. After waiting around for over 12 hours to play his first round, Hing played a solid back and forth match versus his opponent from UPS. After trading the first two sets, the freshman was able to pull out the win with a 10-8 victory in the 3rd. For his efforts, he was rewarded with going back on the court 15 minutes later to play the last match of the evening.

Still pumped from his first-round victory, Hing started off strong versus the tournament’s 15th seed from Whitworth, winning the first set 7-5. Following the first set, the Boxer opponent blazed to a 5-0 lead in the second, and despite a late run by Hing, won the set 6-3. So, for the second time that evening, the Boxer freshman was battling for a third set victory. Unfortunately, his efforts came up short, with a 10-7 3rd set tie-breaker defeat. Our 14-hour day was over…as soon as we were able to find a restaurant open for dinner at 11:30 p.m.!

Due to the rain, the consolation brackets were cancelled. That meant the only Boxer players left in the draw for Sunday’s round was the sophomore doubles team of Okada & Kinghorn. And for their efforts on Friday, they earned a date with the No. 6 seeded team from PLU. Going down two early breaks at 4-1, the Boxers looked as though we would be heading home very early on Sunday. However, showing the same fight that they demonstrated in the first round, the sophomore squad battled to get those breaks back to make it 7-7. After a back and forth 15th game of the set, the Boxer team was unable to pull off the break of their own to take the lead, and in turn lost the match 9-7.

All in all, a good weekend for Boxer tennis. We battled hard, and were able to get a close look at this season’s competition. The ITA tournament, which was dominated by the host school Whitman College (all four singles and doubles semi-finalists), serves as the Boxers’ fall season finale. We now know what we need to do to compete with a number of schools in the Northwest Conference this year, and know that we will be successful in doing so with a lot of hard work in the off-season. GO BOXERS!!!!

In addition to his work as men's tennis coach, Brian Jackson is also the chair of Pacific University's department of exercise science.