Monday, October 18, 2004

Hitting It In Hohenfels This past Saturday I took the Baumholder Tennis Team on a trip clear across Germany to face Hohenfels High School's team.  We shoved off at 3:15 a.m., and a mere five hours later, we pulled into Hohenfels. Yep, five hours.  But it was a nice bus. Knowing that they were going to field a relatively inexperienced squad, we liked our chances going in.  Our confidence was rewarded with several victories being racked up, many by players who had not won a match up until this point.  In fact, we hadn't won as a team all year.  That changed this past Saturday. The overall score ended up as 9 to 3 in our favor.  The three loses all came in singles, with one of the loses being a forfeit after one of my players got hurt.  That's by far our best showing of the year. Some highlights: Isabelle got her first win on the season with a long, tough match over the Hohenfels #1. Isabelle was so excited, she managed to get her sweater stuck on the top of a twenty-foot fence. Zain continued his winning ways as the Baumholder #1, making quick work of his opponent. One of the nicest surprises was the success of the last minute pairing of Isabelle and Stefanie as our #1 doubles team.  That fought hard and got our first girls doubles win. On the boys side, Zain and John breezed through their doubles match behind the power of Zain's serve. One of the biggest highlights for me was the bus.  It was huge and comfy, especially for just ten people.  Of course most of the players piled way into the back. So after our first clear match victory of the year, we have just one more to go.  This weekend we travel up to Belgium to face Brussels on their home courts.  This will be a rematch, with them thumping us the first time around.  But after this past Saturday, my players have the extra confidence that comes with winning, and that might just put them over the top.  6:52:55 PM     |

© Copyright 2005 Alex L. Mauldin.