The past two weeks have been filled with competition and the clear reminder of how special it is to travel together as a team on road trips. The competitiveness in our unit this year is well balanced with maximum humor as we tested ourselves against some of the best competition that DIII has to offer over the past two events. At the ITA New England regional competitors included the all the best players from our region and at the Skidmore Open we faced off against some of the top regional teams as well as Denison and Swarthmore which was fun to compete against some opponents we do not get to see as often. Not only did we leave these events with quite a bit of success, but we also more importantly clarified what we need to work on and where we need to go to keep rising!
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| Juju, Noah, and Coach Jake Cohen |
New Assistant Coach In Action
We are thrilled to highlight and announce the newest member of our squad, our Assistant Coach Jake Cohen. We are fortunate to bring in an accomplished former NESCAC player (multiple time All-NESCAC accolades) who immediately has fit in seamlessly with our team. Jake's kind and upbeat approach and willingness to be a sparring partner have already been a huge asset and look forward to having our coaching staff back in full force.
ITA New England Regional Highlights
• We earned two spots in the Rd of 16 in singles across Julian Wu and Reif Larsen who both secured excellent three-set wins.
• Reif continued his winning ways winning another three-set battle to book a ticket to the quarterfinals. Reif’s run demonstrated what all of his coaches and teammates see, excellent development and improvement!
• We had two doubles teams make it to the Rd of 16 (Wu/Lewis) and (Larsen/Hernandez), and all four of our doubles teams in the draw earned at least one win!
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| Nathan Hernandez ready to pounce. |
Skidmore Open Highlights
• We won 3 of the 8 flights across the entire tournament, with a bundle of excellent wins throughout.
• In the D doubles draw Nathan Jackson and Justin Zhou paired up to win three consecutive matches including a convincing 6-1 scoreline in the final!
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| Nathan Jackson and Justin Zhou post doubles flight championship! |
• In the A doubles draw, Noah Lewis and Julian Wu played some particularly impressive tennis including finding themselves a 6-1 winner in the final round as well against a team that has been ranked as high as #2 in the nation!
• In the B doubles draw, Nathan Hernandez and Reif Larsen earned a trip to the semifinals and came up just short against the team that went on to win the draw.
• In the D singles draw, Justin Zhou went on a nice run earning two solid victories and making it to the semifinal round.
• In the C singles draw, both Nathan Jackson and Hugh Hentschel won three-set battles to get to the quarterfinal round.
• In the B singles draw, Reif Larsen played some impressive tennis en route to the consolations finals earning two key wins and only falling in a three-set war. Fell panther, Anand Sahasrabudhe also earned an impressive win the B flight before falling in his own three-set battle.
• In the A singles flight, Julian Wu won the whole thing including taking out two ITA regional winners in consecutive rounds in the semifinals and finals, while fellow A draw competitor Noah Lewis won an awesome three-set match before falling to the eventual finalist!
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| Andy Yim dialing in a forehand! |
Our group will continue to train for a bit more this fall, play an intrasquad tournament, and build on our momentum as we head into our developmental season!
Go Midd!
