The first-ever Bleeding Bruin Blue Athlete of the Week was a very close call, but it eventually came down to extremes in awarding the honor to sophomore Ben Mast.
Tuesday's match against Northridge was extreme: Ben lost the first set 0-6. After that, the most inauspicious first varsity set possible, he proceeded to take the next two sets 6-4, 6-4 to win the match. Despite what the scoreline may have shown, Ben looked like he had the match in his grasp for basically the last set and a half.
Thursday, playing against Goshen freshman Nick Dandino at #1 JV singles, Mast hit the other extreme, winning 6-0, 6-0. Unfortunately, no mention is made of this match in either coach Matt Miller's game story or the Goshen News' Greg Keim's version.
Saturday, Mast filled in at #2 varsity doubles for the injured Johnny Kauffman, teaming up with Daniel Buschert to defeat Rochester 6-0, 6-2. This quote from Miller's report sums up pretty well what clinched the AOW honor for Ben, in addition to what I saw earlier in the week:
"Especially impressive was the net game of Mast, according to teammate Seth Krabill, 'I forget what a good volleyer Ben is.'"Coming in a close second was senior Jordan Weaver, with five goals (including a hat trick) in two soccer games; ultimately, however, the double bagel proved too much to overcome.
Switching gears now from award presenter to award public-relations man, I'm going to attribute the fact that no nominations were received to the fairly low relative readership of this blog. It is, however, possible to nominate athletes for this award. For more details, see the athlete of the week introduction here.
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