November 12, 2009
Off-Season Training
You may or may not know that during the months of October, November, December and part of January, I cannot be on the tennis court with the tennis team for training purposes. It is a difficult thing to do as I start to prepare for the spring season and begin wondering what my doubles line-ups might be and who is going to step up. I have always urged my previous teams to continue the training that we started in September, but it had been spuratic at best. Not this team.
During these months I resume my job as a teaching pro for the community, hosting clinics and giving private lessons, so I am still at the tennis center daily. To my surprise this year, the team is there everyday hitting. And from what the older guys have told me, they are also in the weight room building strength and doing speed workouts. As a coach, this is exactly what you want from your team. They know coming in that I can't hold practice every day of the year and I can only entice them to continue. It is extremely easy to not do the work, citing that there are too many other things that need to get done. But not this team. They are all good managers of their time and are finding a way to get better every day.
I am very happy with this group of guys. They are hard workers and they know what they need to do to help us achieve our goals for this upcoming season. It is November 12 and we do not start for about 2 months, if the guys continue working at this pace, our preseason practices will be outstanding and we will definitely be prepared for the tough challenges ahead. The Wabash College Tennis Team can truly follow the motto, "WABASH ALWAYS FIGHTS!"
And to football team and coaches as well as the entire community, best of luck this Saturday, bring the bell back to its official home!
GO LITTLE GIANTS!
Coach
Posted by hutchisj at 01:21 PM | Comments (0)
November 09, 2009
ITA Experience from a Freshman Perspective
We used our tennis trip to the ITA tournament in St. Louis as a way for our team to bond and become stronger as a group. I knew a handful of guys before I came to Wabash but going through practices at the beginning of the year and playing with the guys at the tournament allowed me to become very familiar with all of them. We had a lot of fun eating out at restaurants and hanging out at the hotel, and I’m fortunate to be a part of this great group of guys.
Our trip wasn’t just a team building exercise though. The tournament was a good opportunity to see what parts of our tennis game we needed to work on. It was a new environment to be in as a freshman for sure. We saw the likes of the University of Chicago, Washington University in St. Louis, and our strong conference foe Kenyon College at the tournament. Even though those teams were noticeably the stronger of the competition, it was great to play them to see how we stacked up. I played with Peter Gunderman, a sophomore, in doubles and we drew Chicago in one of our matches. Though we lost, we committed ourselves to staying focused and refused to be intimidated by our opponents. In playing them I got a chance to see what it takes to play at the collegiate level.
We’re currently working on staying in shape for our upcoming season. We combine weight training with speed workouts throughout the week to keep our workout schedule balanced. Hitting sessions are also done to make sure that we maintain our strokes when official spring practices roll around. We’re working hard to improve our tennis games and I’m eager to see how we perform in our season this year.
Posted by hutchisj at 11:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
September 18, 2009
2009 Fall Season
I know, I know...it has been too long. I am back and ready to start filling all of the Wabash Tennis Fans in on how things are going. Fall 2009 has brought a bunch of new faces to the team and not just freshmen. We are also returning a good core of lettermen. As well as some upperclassmen that were either overseas studying or not on the team last year. Our biggest goal right now is for us to get to know each other a lot better and figure out what our identity as a team is. Once this is accomplished, we can start focusing on doubles combinations, singles line-ups, and match preparation.
One thing is for sure about this year's team: We will be fit and we will fight. Every member knows what we need to do to compete and to this point they are putting the time in to get better. Every one of them is just a "good kid" and wants to see their teammates succeed. We hosted a little tournament last weekend and things went well. Now are preparing for the ITA Central Region Tournament hosted by Washington Univeristy in St. Louis. In one week we will be there competing against the region's best players. Should be an excellent test of where we are after our tough practices. Once we get back, I will let all of you know how we did. Wish us luck!
2009-2010 Roster:(* denotes letters earned)
Evan Bayless (SO) Crawfordsville, IN *
Bryan Burzon (JR) Fort Wayne, IN
Michael Demeter (FR) Crawfordsville, IN
Elliot Dewey (FR) Warren, OH
Billy Evans (JR) Gary, IN **
Peter Gunderman (SO) Zionsville, IN *
Rob Janda (SR) Burr Ridge, IL
Ian Leonard (FR) Bloomington, IN
Zach Lowry (SO) Indianapolis, IN *
Ricky Ritter (JR) New Palestine, IN **
Nick Smith (SO) Fort Wayne, IN
Lewis Towne (SO) Danville, IL
Hope everyone has a great weekend!
Wabash Tennis Always Fights,
Coach
Posted by hutchisj at 02:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Nick Smith, Class of 2012
There is a certain tradition on the tennis team that we must do each time we step on the court for practice, the dynamic warm-up. Although this may seem tedious doing it every single day of practice, it’s a great analogy to what this year appears to be headed, dynamic. Dynamic is quite an odd word, but at the same time it just seems to fit us. We’re constantly doing things to improve our game all around. First off, we’ve been mixing up practice a lot more this year, hitting every particular area where we need improvement. Within the first two weeks I’m already seeing a lot of improvement in areas where I have often neglected in the past, most noticeably my footwork. The biggest mix up by far has been not what were doing on the court, but the time were spending pumping iron, jump roping, and much more. I have high hopes for what is going to happen after doing this for three months! The other cool thing that happened this year was the all campus showdown. This was a pretty big event last Saturday where players from all around the state came and just played competitively/fun for a whole day. Our whole team played great, especially Pete and Ian at doubles. More importantly, it was just a blast getting to play a couple new guys from outside the twelve guys on our team. Well, enough looking back over the past two weeks. Next Thursday, the 24th, 8 guys get to go down to ITA’s in St. Louis. I’m pretty excited to go for the first time, and I’m sure we’ll do great after seeing us play last weekend. The team I know is focused in on ITA’s at this point because it’s the last major event of the fall season. With that in mind, I’m sure it will be the best week of practices yet. Can’t wait to write about how we do, Hope you have a great week, Nick Smith Class of 2012
Posted by hutchisj at 02:52 PM | Comments (0)
March 23, 2009
Season of Streaks
Good Morning Fans,
It is Monday morning and I have some fantastic news for all of you. As you recall if you have been following the blog and our season, we started hot, going 3-0. Then lost 2, won 1, and then we decided to play some very good competition and lost 7 in a row making our record 4-9. As I discussed in the last blog, our guys did not let that affect them, they were ready to make a turnaround to the season and they have to this point.
It began last Wednesday when we hosted Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. I knew that they were going to be a tough test, especially since we were in a losing streak. Monday and Tuesday of last week we spent a large amount of time on doubles and I just kept pushing the guys to prepare themselves. They did not disappoint. We came out ready to go, we cruised at 2 dubs and fought back to win a tough one at 3 dubs. One doubles had a tough one. So going into singles we are up 2-1. I brought them in and told them to go out, play aggressively and put this match away. Again, they did not disappoint. We won at 1, 3, 4, 6 making the final score 6-3. A very good win and the streak of losses was over. Plus with that win at #1 singles, Jay Horrey tied the career victories record in singles.
Moving into the weekend we had a test against Ohio Wesleyan, a conference opponent. I told the guys on Friday night in the hotel that this team was going to similar to Rose-Hulman, so we needed to come ready to go. They did. We swept the doubles. Jay and Sean Clerget at #1 doubles won 8-6 and that broke the record for career doubles victories for Jay and moved Sean up the list as well. Singles was a little in doubt. OWU decided they weren't going to give up. Jay lost the first set at 1, but came back strong to take the second and third, thus breaking the record for most singles victories in a career. Awesome match! Ricky at 2 won 4,4 in a tough match, one that he probably wouldn't have won last year. We also won at 4 (in 3 sets, 6-0 in the 3rd), 5, and 6. Making the score 8-1 and moving us to 2-0 in our division of conference.
That afternoon we played Capital University out of the OAC. They only brought 5 guys, so before we even started the match we were up 2-0. Crusied at 1 and 2 dubs and finished with an 8-1 victory.
3 wins in a row moving into the annual Kerry Seward Invitational. This is an individual tournament, so no chance to continue the team win streak, but nevertheless a good tournament to get us ready for our next conference opponent, Wittenberg, on April 4. Keep reading and following the season as we continue to shoot for our goals.
Wabash Tennis Always Fights,
Coach Hutchison
Posted by hutchisj at 10:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 16, 2009
Back to Reality
Good Afternoon,
It is Monday, March 16 and we are back in good, old Crawfordsville. Luckily it is not in the 30's. We returned late Saturday night from our spring break trip in Orlando, Florida. I have been trying to think of the best way to let everyone know how the trip went and the best thing I can say is that we are now a much closer team, a more positive team, and a team that is eager to finish the season strong.
When I scheduled our opponents last fall for this trip, I was unaware of how good they were. Most of the teams we played were either regionally or nationally ranked. One good thing about our tennis team is that they don't care how good their opponent is, they are going to fight until they have to shake hands. This is a group of guys that want to get better and will work extremely hard to get there. We did not win a match while down there, but there was only one match that I felt we didn't have a chance at pulling off once it had started. The teams that we played were experienced and well coached and just had more shots and a little tougher mentality than we did. It seems like we haven't won a match in a long time, but it has not discouraged the guys, they are eager to start the second half of their season. All results from the matches are posted on our tennis webpage at www.wabash.edu.
Now for the fun stuff...on Monday I took the guys to Cocoa Beach for the day. They had an awesome time. Got burnt, but had a great time. We went out to dinner almost every night and it was nice to get something different from Frat food, fast food, or anything in Crawfordsville. We played 4 mathces on Tues and Wed, and then on Thursday we went to a Braves/Nationals Spring Training Day game at Disney's Wide World of Sports. Great time.
Despite the losses, the seniors told me they had a great final trip and the younger guys feel more like part of the team. This will help guide us through the remainder of the season. Once I get some pictures downloaded, I will put them up on my next blog.
This week we have Rose-Hulman Wednesday at 5pm and then we travel to OWU on Friday for matches against them and Capital on Saturday. Talk to all of you next week!
Wabash Always Fights,
Coach Hutchison
Posted by hutchisj at 03:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
February 26, 2009
4-2, Spring Break on the Mind
Good Morning Fans,
I apologize for the missed entry last week. Valentine's Day weekend was a tough one for us. We took to the road and headed east to Kenyon College. We knew coming into the match that it was going to be a tough one. At that time they were #8 in the nation and they played like it. The good thing about a match like that is it gives us a chance to work on some areas of our games that we wouldn't normally do. The guys went out and fought, like I knew they would, in the end, Kenyon was just too tough.
The morning match against University of Chicago was a strong showing. We lost 9-0, but Jay had a chance at his second set, Ryan lost in three and probably should have won, Zach was up 5-2 in the first set and let it slip away, Peter played a great second set and the rest of the guys gave it what they could. We just came up short. Rough weekend, but it was a chance to see what we need to work on.
This past weekend we were scheduled to have matches against Grace College (NAIA) and Earlham College. Grace's coach called and informed me that due to the nasty weather that came in on Friday, they were going to be unable to make it down. Luckily Earlham came over to Crawfordsville before the weather hit and we moved that match up to a noon start time. Earlham's coach is Adam Van Zee, a Wabash alum that played for me for 3 years. He is doing a great job, they just don't have the talent. he will definitely get the program moving in the right direction.
The team came out ready to go. In nine matches I believe we gave up just 13 games. I told the guys before the match that it was important for us to win 9-0 against them because a match like this has seeding implications at our conference tournament.
This weekend we have 2 more tough opponents. Luther College tomorrow night and Hope College on Saturday afternoon. We will be ready, but are going to have to play our best to win.
I bring up Spring Break because the guys (and myself) are ready to get out of this weather and see some sunshine. We leave for Orlando a week from tomorrow and are definitely ready. We will play 5 matches while down there. All opponents will be solid, but nobody that we can't compete with.
I will be back the first of next week to discuss the Luther/Hope matches. Have a wonderful day and don't be afraid to send me back some comments.
Wabash Always Fights,
Coach
Posted by hutchisj at 08:37 AM | Comments (0)
