Sept 23, 2021   Cowgirls host the Lady Villains of Bishop McGuiness High School (BMHS)   Medicine doesn’t taste good.  And if the grape or cherry flavors really masked the bitter/cringy taste of the Tylenol or Robitussin, honestly, there would be more closest drinkers beginning at age 4 continuing to adulthood.  The same is true for testing.  We like fluff.  We like situations that are quick to learn and easy to continue.  We like small setbacks because they give us pause, but on the next go, without changing much, we want to pass that next level and continue on.  We don’t like losing without some small cloud with a silver lining…in short, we like redemption with minimal sacrifice.  By playing a team twice….let me start over.  By playing quality teams twice, they become benchmarks to acknowledge the growth achieved.  Without this testing, we grow to be self-deluded in our playing assumptions and styles.  Over test and your team grows weary of the futile struggle.  Test too little, growth is left unchecked and pruning hurts.  Bishop McGuiness is a Quality team.  Currently ranked #2 overall in the state in their class, Coach decided this was the non-conference benchmark he would use to better understand Cowgirl Tennis growth midseason.  The first time the Cowgirls played BMHS early in the season, it wasn’t much of a match.  Heat was up, delay was called, though only singles were played, it was enough to develop a full wishlist of improvements Coach needed to address to ready the team for conference play after losing 1-5.  Both Coach and the teams got to work.  Now right over halfway through the season, we played them again.  These were the results: Everyone played someone different.  BMHS’s lineup had changed.  As the reader is aware, so too for the Cowgirls #3/4.  Save for the top two courts, the first set was not indicative of the growth Coach knew was present for the Cowgirls. Audrey, having won the first time we hosted now played the BMHS state qualifier from last year.  An entirely different game.  Whereas Audrey likes power and corners mixed with off pace and drop shots, Bishops girl hits loopy slower paced magic mixed with excellent footwork.  Yes.  This was going to be interesting.  Audrey began intense…going after shots, hard serves delivered, pushing her play.  Her opponent sat back and played her loopy game, tracked down most everything Audrey had to offer, and bided her time.  Score? …on serve.  Score calling drama ensued…three points lost, Audrey now down, battled back, broke in turn, back on serve once more.  3-4, 4-4, 5-4. Bishop holds, 5-5. Intense play, 6-5.  Lines painted and Bishop calls two out in a row.  Confidence shaken, Audrey’s play pulls back to make sure shots go in….Loooooooooooooooong rallies ensure.  Advantage Bishop… 6-6, into a tie breaker. Down 2-5 in the tiebreaker, Audrey can’t sustain a foothold.  Top of the net grabbing at Audrey’s shots, baselines shrinking- stealing away inches from available length causing shots to go out, loopy shots from both sides…Audrey’s game reduce in power and scope. 3-5 4-5 4-6 5-6. Audrey needs three solid points to take the first set and ease the stress on coach….and net tape grabs another ball for its collective count. 6-7, 5-7 first set to Bishop. The second set didn’t redeem Audrey’s shots nor demeanor.  Loopy McLoopy, again, a good hitter with great footwork tracked it all down.  With Audrey’s main weapon essentially negated, Audrey was forced to play the patience game and keep the ball in play, trying to drop shot from the baseline (a hard thing to do), hit higher to cause the ball to bounce higher and further back to try to take the Lady Villain out of her element….it worked for a while.  2-1 on serve was the limit then.  Bishop took Audrey out of her game and mindset.  6-7(5-7), 2-6.  Santa, All I want for Christmas is patience. Tran, essentially crush by the girl Audrey played in the writing above the first time Cowgirls hosted BMHS, now played the former #1 player.  Tall, hard hitting, punishing serves, in short, another quality player.  Tran impressed no one in her first 3 games going 0-3.  Deciding that was quite enough, she held and broke the Lady Villain.  Now 2-3 and back on serve, Tran played Tran.  Coach warned her not to play Tran + today…that would cause too much uncertainty in her own game while playing into the hands of her opponent.  3-3, 3-4, 4-4, 4-5, 5-5, 6-5 Guess what? A tiebreaker at 6-6! Tran redirected the Bishop’s play into shots requiring her opponent to run and in doing so, not set up for shots reducing the efficacy of the shot selection. Though close, Tran came out ahead 7-6(7-5).  She was not out of the woods yet. Tran continued to battle.  These two remained on serve throughout the second set until 5-6.  Bishop’s player pushing hard, she connects with three shots in a row.  Tran figuratively stumbles in her approach shots.  7-5 Bishop’s favor. Splitting sets, they head into a third set tiebreaker. Bishop’s player playing conservatively, and in turn, hitting shorter.  Honestly, this was unchartered territory for Tran.  She has played net, she is very good at baseline rally, but approach shots….this was her downfall.  Bishop continued hitting tentative shorties, required Tran to move up, trying to press the point, Tran went to Tran + mode…the shot goes long. Another …..hits the net. Another…long again Another …..she makes successful contact and over, but Bishop was already running to the far side of the court.  Bishop’s player hits it into the open court for a winner.  Tran was pushing too much.  Due to the rules, Coach cannot bring her over and “chat” during a tiebreaker.  Tran was on her own. Down 2-6 on the race to 10, Tran covers, but the shorties were her undoing.  Tran fought well, pushing her opponent farther that she had been pushed to date, but she came up short.  7-6(7-5), 5-7, 0-1(5-10). Well played Tran.  We will work on the approach shots. Yucky medicine!   Not to belittle their efforts, but the first sets for the rest of the Cowgirls…well, there wasn’t much to write about, but the second sets.  Coach found the improvement in what he was looking for. Lauren, again, on a new court playing a new girl, finally began to get her forehand in.  Moving better in the second than the first helped as well.  We will work on footwork to the ball and range of hitting from the forehand.  3-6 in the second. Grace went up early in the second after finding her path.  Allie, her opponent was super nice…just like Grace!  Allie just came back into Bishop’s lineup last week after an injury.  This injury didn’t seem to slow her down and in turn, help improve the overall depth of the Bishop line-up down at 5 and 6. Correct!  This did not spell good news for the Cowgirls. Up as much as 4-2, Allie lengthened her play and all but stopped her errors.  Multiple deuce and close games ensued.  4-6 in the second set. Anna simply played a wall.  Remember Anna is a Freshy.  A talented freshy playing in the top six, but a freshy nonetheless.  The same goes for Grace, but Grace has three year of life beneath her stylish belt. Tennis is not Pong ...

Sept 20 2021   Cowgirls host the Lady Hornets of Western Guilford – conference W Tennis   Cooler than the first time we played.  Coach and the Ladi4es...

SW Cowgirls host the Lady Pirates of Page in conference tennis action    Coach would love to share the small tennis miracle of making old balls new, turning tap water into Gatorade...

Sept 9, 2021   Southwest Cowgirls travel to Tiger Country  - Ragsdale – for W tennis conference action Abridged Version The night showed full of...

Sept 13, 2021   Cowgirls play host to the Lady Vikings of NW. At the completion of tonight’s match, we are one half through the regular season having played every...

Sept 7, 2021   Cowgirls v the Lady Whirlies of Grimsley – Conference Tennis Action   4 tiebreakers, 2 went our way 1 more tight match @ 2 ...

Sept 2, 2021 The rain pushed the play of the Cowgirls off for a night, but the consolation gift was a day and evening of cooler temperatures and a light breeze.  Tonight&rs...

Aug 30, 2021   Coach, in reviewing historical data of the Nighthawks from the current season and even from last spring, knew it would be close.  On some courts, we looked the...

August 25, 2021   “The air was oppressive even in the early morning hour, hot with the scorching promise of a noon of glaring blue sky and pitiless bronze sun.” Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind   …and added to that, the southern swell of August humidity pushed the Wet Bulb Test ever higher.  Hovering above the magical 90 mark which demarcates where athletic participation outside can occur, the WBT seemed not to budge from near 3 O’clock to when our travels brought us to the 21 year old courts of Western Guilford.  Still too hot to remain safely outside, we disembarked the bus, set out cooler and team area, and headed into the main lobby of Western…and we remained there for 2 hrs 15. Why so long?  Oh, if your memory of southern weather and its repercussions has left you, extreme heat can cause storms to brew as the warm, humid air rises to meet cooler air, causing…. Sorry, you seemed to have fallen asleep.  Let’s skip the chart and moisture cycles and say heat and lightening caused over an hour delay in our start. 6:32 we make it to the courts, announce the players, pair off the flighted levels, let then warm up on their own so the first ball of the match dropped at 6:45.   There is always an uneasy adjustment much like stepping into a dark room as the door closes behind you or for gentlemen, cold water as it near our speedos…I think you understand it from the first descriptor.  The first 2/3 games are a period of feeling out the opponent.  Will they hit well?  Did my serve abandon me completely in the night?  What is a forehand?  I can only imagine the internal dialogue the ladies have knowing what runs through my mind before a match.  Slow and steady is often the course the ladies decide upon. And across the board the ladies began.  Coach knew the relative strength of his ladies after seeing them battle well v Page on Monday.  He had little concern with the top 2 matches, but 3-5 often play a bit more mirror (reflective of what the opponent can play) while Kate plays…well, Kate’s game.  Think Tortoise and the Hare, but prettier with vibrant flowing red locks.  Slow and Steady…with a few kickers that seem to surprise Kate at times.  Tran went immediately on a roll.  #2 from western seemed blindsided.  Up 5-0 in no time at all, the Lady Hornet questioned a call after Tran called it in.  Tran allowed the call to stand.  The Lady hornet didn’t seem pleased.  Play continued.  Possible slightly rattled by her opponents stance or simply from a brief elevation in her opponent’s play, Tran couldn’t convert two breaks from the Hornet’s serve.  Winning her own and playing tightly shot for shot with her opponent, Tran found her chance in the 6 th game, breaking the girl’s serve and resolve.  6-0, 6-2.  A textbook win for Tran. By the time Tran was up 5-0 on her opponent, the rest of the team had only played 3 games.  The points across all courts were longer, much longer than anticipated.  Reminding me of what we did to Page on Monday, though coming up short, the play was intense through EVERY point played.  Tough loses make you either humble or bitter.  Tough wins make you extremely grateful.  Grace Parsons, after having lost a tough third set to Mrs. Cook’s daughter, Mallory of HPC and nearly clawing her way back into the match 2 nd set v Page (4-6 from down 0-4), needed a win, she needed to feel her efforts could return a victory. Her match was tight.  Any serves broken were given back the next game throughout the match.  Though Grace’s serve was looking good, her play floated up and ran in lock step with her opponent’s ability to hit the ball.  Longer balls, both had.  Errant shorter balls, check.  Higher floating shots that made rallies long and thus began that gnawing in Coach’s belly from an ulcer yet to be discovered, yeah, this match had that too. Up 6-5 Grace couldn’t convert the break opportunity.  Into a tiebreaker we go. 1-0 1-1 2-1 2-2 3-2 3-3 Coach hates trends like this 4-3 4-4 5-4 5-5 6-5 And finally, her opponent faltered, hitting the ball into the net after another long rally. 7-5, Grace secures the first set.  7-6 (5).     (5) referring to 7-5 in the tiebreak.    Wow.  OK, Coach needed to walk away and breathe for a bit.  Lauren, ct 4.  Her shots were not as forced as they were on Monday.  There was an ease in her play.  This more so relaxed Lauren continued to work through some demons as her play improved over the course of the first set.  Serves more consistent, forehand top spin increasing…up 4-2, Coach moved on down. Freshy Anna clearly had the better court movement of the court 5 ladies, but her opponent was no slouch, running down most shots and again, drawing out the points into longer hitting rallies. Up 3-2, Anna seemed in control of her match. Fiery ginger Kate was everywhere on her court.  The normal #6 WG player was out due to a leg twisty, rotator, ACL, ankle type injury. [Though it might appear so, Coach has never attended medical school] Ms. Scott, another ginger moved up to play her spot.  As so with all ThunderDome Matches ...

Aug 23, 2021   It was hot.  A heat delay.  And we even saw bird flying north in attempts to escape the heat and get to someplace cooler.  Wow!  Standing in the...