The Right Direction

By Matt Miller
Bethany Christian Tennis

GOSHEN — On Tuesday, our varsity played an excellent tight match to turn things around in the season. Thursday night, we concentrated on heading in the right direction. Playing our style, with confidence, and continuing to stay focused no matter the score or match situation.

The most obvious match to see this improvement was Abe Thorne's. After losing on Tuesday to a very consistent, non-hard hitting player, Abe dedicated himself to focusing on his mental game and his smaggressive play. Today, matched up against a freshman playing in much the same style, Abe stroked his way to an easy first set with volleys and well placed topspin balls. In the second set, he faced some adversity as he got down early, 1-2. But riding his early smart ball, he began to angle off the volleys and control his serve, and recovered to not lose another game.

That was Abe's first victory on the season, and another Bruin picked up their first as well. Ike Lehman grabbed his first victory in a very well-played, patient match against fellow senior Glen McClain. Ike used a consistent first serve to exploit McClain's weaker backhand, but the second set tightened up as Ike had trouble breaking McClain's serve. However, Ike came through with clutch service games of his own, sending the match into a tiebreak. In the tiebreak, tied at 3, Ike came up with the shot of the night. With McClain at the net, Ike was sent far into his forehand corner. On a dead sprint, he whipped a sliced forehand with a wrist flick that just barely cleared the top of the net. McClain couldn't handle the low ball, and Ike took a 4-3 lead. Growing in confidence in these tight situations, he went on to pound an overhead at match point for a two-set win.

Also grabbing two-set wins were #1 singles, Nathan Brendle, and #2 doubles, Hans Miller and Joel Gerig. They both played similar matches in that, at any point, their opponents would hit amazing shots, but these three just played consistently better. And the #2 doubles victory sealed the match for the Bruins.

#1 doubles played on, but they couldn't quite pull out the victory. Little mistakes in crucial times still seem to bother this team, something we'll iron out as the season goes on. It was a great match.

In the JV, the top positions cruised. #1 and #2 singles and doubles all had easy victories, giving Landon, Tristan and Neel their first victories of the season. The story of the day at all these positions was that we were just more consistent, something that hasn't been able to be said all year to this point. Another step in the right direction!

Notes & Stats

• Nate now has the most varsity victories with 4, Hans also has a winning record at 3- 1. But every player who has played a varsity match this season now has 1 victory (at least).
• Sol Brenneman, Justin Zehr, and Wade Troyer lead into the JV with 2 wins each.
• Nate continued the trend of long matches at Fremont, short ones here at Bethany. What an effort from him tonight, he thoroughly controlled his match.
• The JV match came down to the last team on the court, Delan Schrock and Jacob Rudy-Froese. After losing the first 5 games, they mounted a short comeback and won the next game to go to 1-5, then had a game point to go to 2-5. But they couldn't keep it up, and we lost JV 4-5.
• We won the JV 5-4 last year in a similar circumstance. Neel Bhagat and Luke Schrock won the very last match to seal it for us.
• Tonight was the first time we sang "Sarasponda" on our courts after a win this season. We were shocked to find out that the freshman had never learned this song in choir!
• Our new jerseys came yesterday and we tried them out tonight. Looks like good luck! Check out all their majesty:
  

Bethany 4, Fremont 1
Nathan Brendle def. Tyler Jenkins 6-0, 6-1. Ike Lehman def. Glen McClain 6-2, 7-6(5). Abe Thorne def. Logan Miller 6-0, 6-2. Himal King/Parth Patel lost to Brandon Miller/Tanner Frye 6-7(4), 4-6. Joel Gerig/Hans Miller def. Mason Kolberg/Drew Sullivan 6-2, 6-0.

JV: Fremont 5, Bethany 4
Sol Brenneman def. Mitchel Long 6-1. Tristan Clark def. Kyle Boekhout 6-0. Ethan Lapp lost to Brandan Arnos 3-6. Jack Erlacher lost to Jeremy Seiler 3-6. Paul Krabill lost to Derek Fischer 0-6. Wade Troyer/Landon Weldy def. Fischer/Jordan Sanderson 6-0. Justin Zehr/Neel Bhagat def. Hunter Jump/Connor McHann 6-2. Roberto Ramos/Noah Hochstetler lost to Long/Boekhout 2-6. Delan Schrock/Jacob Rudy-Froese lost to Sanderson/Seiler 1-6.

Matt Miller is head boys tennis coach and author of the Bethany Christian Tennis blog. His recaps are reprinted here by permission.