The Lady Pirates of Page over the Cowgirls 8-1 in Conference opener for W Tennis

Losing bites

Not quite an opening worthy of the literary Greats, but the brevity and scope of such an expression covers quite a lot of ground without being too lengthy….unlike most of Coach’s recaps.

Much like the weather tonight which began cloudy transitioning to sunshine and then eventual darkness, our play was cloudy with rays of sunshine sprinkled throughout until the darkness overshadowed the fleeting light of our play. 

Dear Reader, do not despair nor think Coach has gone to a bad place in his thoughts.  Rather, until the darkness falls, we cannot look forward to the night eventually breaking with the dawn of a new day….one with light, hope, and playing promise. 

Now, Coach isn’t about to begin Monty Python’s “Always Look On The Bright Side of Life” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrdEMERq8MA), but this moment of reflection begs us to begin an introspective glance and have a look around.

Page brought a new #1 into the mix.  Though not normally a thing of note, this player was a GTP native.  GTP as in Greensboro Tennis Program.   Think an Early College, but for tennis.  She had quality shots and a huge serve.  Audrey faced off willingly against the Lady Pirate and came up short tonight.  She had moments of great play, but her shots simply were not falling where they needed.  Consistency errors spelled her fate tonight.  Mistakes exacerbated the widening score difference, opportunities were limited and fleeting, and the Lady Pirate took the match 1 and 3.  It will be interesting to see how they fare the next time they meet.

Lauren, Anna, Rachael, Betsy and Jada all faced the same outcome as our player leader Audrey.  I think it was summed up best by Betsy who asked her opponent how long she had played tennis.  Ms. Cox’s response…”All of her life.”  If you are an Outlander fan as Roselynn and my wife are…it translates roughly to “Since I was a wee bairn.” 

The Lady Pirates sweep the Cowgirls in singles 6-0.  Please understand Coach isn’t sad by this development.  It is hard to get worked up when you have seen Page’s talent exhibited in years past and most recently in their play last week.  To Audrey, Page was a +1.  To the rest of the ladies, Page’s line up was at least a + 2 if not a +3 player.  In other words, outside of their #1, Audrey could have handled anyone from their team.  And the rest of the Cowgirl lineup would have had a great showing if Page sat their top 2 or 3 players and played up.  This is to say Page had talent aplenty and due to that strength, they made a great showing and took care of things in our first conference outing of the season.

Dubs fared similarly. 

Serb and McGinnis teamed up against Page #1/#3 and had a great time together, but fell 1-8.  Dee and Chen sped to an early lead, but the Pirates gained their focus and mounted a comeback that the Cowgirls could not stop.  Final score was 6-8.  A highlight of the evening was Jada Speight and Caroline Church.  In a very close match with both sides holding serve for most of the match, the Cowgirls broke late in the match and took the Lady Pirates 8-6.  Incredible tennis all around?  No, but it was an honest look at the challenges these young Cowgirls faced at the hands of a talented and truly genuine team.

The bad….we lost.  Clearly the gate receipts will suffer, much to the chagrin of our illustrious AD - Coach Christman.  But we have a healthy reserve and Coach has promised to pull the Cowgirls out of a tailspin by the end of the week.  I think we can reach that goal….if not, Christman has asked me to begin soliciting Head Coach resume’s from the reading public…so if you love tennis and are willing to get your CDL within a year of hire, Please send your resumes to:

SW Athletics – W Tennis Head Coach Position

c/o Brindon Christman

4364 Barrow Rd

High Point, NC 27262

Now for the Good!  The Cowgirls played well.  This isn’t the proverbial smoke being blown up the…well…you know, rather it is an honest assessment of the tonight’s play.  We weren’t crushed.  OK, sure the score doesn’t look great, but the play behind the score, well, the score is rarely indicative of the play on the court.  Audrey challenged throughout…but the Page #1 simply controlled her mistakes more so than Audrey.  Lauren had a couple of really good service games and few good rallies…just not to the level of play of her opponent.  Anna ran against a wonderfully talented Pirate who liked to drop shot and approach….two things Anna is still working on.  That added to the fact Anna’s lobs were not raised enough nor were they dropping as well as she would like.  Rallies were great on Anna’s court, but the talented red haired serve and volley player from Page simply had a more complete game than Anna.  Rachael and Betsy both played their game the best they could.  With a few more tools in their respective toolkits, the score would have been much tighter.  And of course, Jada, new to tennis in general…the Lady Pirate simply was more consistent with her game than Jada was with hers.  The Cowgirls showed well tonight…we simply need time and playing opportunities to further develop our individual play.

If we could channel the Wizard of Oz mindset and the gifts requested from the travelers of that famed story, I have a list to present to the great Wizard.  Heart, we have in abundance.  All the players tonight have great hope and love of the game.   But what this season will represent is the work put towards a few key facets of our burgeoning tennis game. 

               1/  We need to limit our errors and learn how to hit our shots against a faster and deeper ball

                              So…Consistency in the face of a harder hitter

               2/ A lob would be keen! 

                              A deep, possibly top spin, lob could be used as both an offensive AND defensive weapon

               3/  Limiting errors while serving

                              To serve is easy.

                              To serve against a better player, behind in the count, and with the stress

                                             growing exponentially while the impending feeling of being all alone….ouch!

               4/  Tennis mindset

                              This is likely the most difficult for the Wizard of the Great Emerald City to grant. 

                              Let’s use this season as a down payment to this end.

So in closing (Finally!), we didn’t win.  We were beaten by a better team.  Page is a lovely team, full of talented players and a great coach….honest to say Coach has a wishful Bromance developing over the past season and the start of this one for the Page’s coach.  And Robert, if you read this, the hair looks great…and I found this for you (https://www.ebay.com/itm/264948969821) .  Remember I am a teacher and cannot afford such niceties.  The Lady Pirates and I will begin a Go Fund Me and see where that takes us.

Where were we?  That’s right!  No, we didn’t win.  We also didn’t play poorly either.  We had opportunities in select games across the board.  Some opportunities were taken while others were given back in the form of unforced errors/straight points to the opponents respectively.  We have some things to work on…but we are a young team with not so many collective years between the players combined. 

True, losing bites, but unless you are a donkey-hole, Tennis is a journey we are on for a lifetime of competitive play and fellowship.  Losing allows for an honest conversation of our fragile mental self and tenuously held together toolkit of shots we use for most occasions…regardless of the opponent.  Can we strengthen our shots, increase our toolkit, and broaden our prospects over the season to ultimately better our play? 

Yes.  I believe we can….Yes We Can! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-75QLK6G06A) - ~ 15 secs in

We look to the breaking of dawn on tonight’s loss…hopefully with a renewed vigor and focus on the shots, patience, and mindset of what it will take to overcome our next opponent…light, hope, and playing promise.

Meta, most definitely.

Tomorrow we host Bishop McGuinness…another quality team.  Patience, consistency, well placed serves with a reduction of unforced errors is in the forecast.  Please let it rain down fully on us. 

Anjali Tatini (Page) over Audrey Serb (SW) 6-1, 6-3

Audrey Chen (P) over Lauren Harris(SW) 6-0, 6-1

Hattie Sloyan (P) over Anna McGinnis (SW) 6-0, 6-1

A.P. Esbridge (P) over Rachael Dee (SW) 6-2, 6-0

Mary Cox (P) over Betsy Chen (SW) 6-1, 6-0

Maddie Herrick (P) over Jada Speight (SW) 6-3, 6-1

Tatini/Sloyan (P) over Serb/McGinnis (SW) 8-1

Esbridge/Anne Kaplan (P) over Dee/Chen (SW) 8-6

Speight/Caroline Church (SW) over Caitlyn Medley/Sullivan Edmonds (P) 8-6

Page takes the Cowgirls 8-1 in the first conference match of the season.

Cowgirls drop to 2-1 overall, 0-1 in conference

Lady Pirates raise to 2-0, 1-0 in conference

Page hosts the Lady Tigers of Ragsdale on Wed, 8/24

Cowgirls hosts Bishop McGuiness on Tues, 8/23