Way back in May, soon after I got back from school, I enjoyed lunch with Coach Siehl, Kyle, Cory, and Milan at The Arena. Coach said that Saturday morning practices would be starting up soon, and I told him I would like to come out and play sometime, and that I would be there “this week”... Well, I got an email from him that Friday night, and I thought it said practice did not start until the following week; however, it did start the following morning, but I was not there. The following week, Grandpa Frank was in for Mom's and Stuartt's birthday, the week after that I started working at HeBrews, and same with the following weekend. Last Saturday, I slept in again and then went to Shasta's for a fish fry/picnic, but finally, this Saturday, I was up by 8:30, and I joined Coach, Kellen, Kyle, Jeff, Milak, and Stephen at the tennis courts on the Green. It was good to get out and hit the ball around for a while, and I was there for a full three hours and by the end of that time, I had started to get back the touch I had lost in nine months of inactivity with a tennis racket. Hopefully next Tuesday I can get out and play some pickup soccer with the guys, and work on that touch. :-)

Bedford, 0; Somerset, 3

Kyle and Adam clinched the Bedford sweep of all three District V tennis titles this year, with a decisive comeback win over a strong #1 Hyndman team. After absolutely slaughtering Tussey Mountain's first team 10-1, they proceeded to wipe out Windber's number two team with the same score. However, they ran into an early snag against Josh Snyder and John Glencoe, losing their first set 6-4 in a best-of-three match. However, they pulled through it and won the next two sets 6-1, 6-1 to take the doubles championship.

Bedford, 5; Windber, 0
We six-peated our District V team championship, and for the past three years (at least), we've swept the final! Having also taken first and second in the District V Singles competition, we only need to take the doubles championship to complete a total sweep of District V. Now, whether or not we keep advancing as a team or not hinges on our match next Tuesday, which will be played against either Bishop Guilfoyle or Somerset in Altoona.

Bedford, 5; Tussey Mountain, 0
Okay, this time around, I didn't get beat by a girl, a big improvement over the last time we faced off against Tussey! :-) I played with Brett at #2 doubles, and you could hardly call what we did a tennis match. Our two opponents (a guy and a girl, but not the girl that beat me last time) made a few good plays, but overall they had very little experience playing. Kyle dominated at #1 singles, with a 6-2, 6-2 win, and Steven (the newest District V Singles Champion)...

Bedford, 5; Tussey Mountain, 2
I got beat by a girl. And it's that simple. :-P

Bedford, 3; Johnstown, 0
Johnstown arrived in style, driving a cute little red Ford Escape. But then, there were only three of them, plus the coach, so they didn't need much more room! Because of their lack of players, the match consisted of three singles. And that was it. Kyle played number one, Steven two, and Adam three. Kyle did the worst, relatively speaking, as he actually lost two games! He won 6-2, 6-0, while Steven and Adam each won 6-0, 6-0. Since there was no one left to play, Coach Siehl had Kellen and Kyle (the other Kyle) play a challenge match to see who would play fifth singles against Tussey, and Cory and I paired up against Jeff and Brett in some doubles competition.

Bedford, 4; Bishop McCort, 1
Yay! We ended our two--or was it three?--match losing streak with a solid trouncing of McCort.

Bedford, 2; Richland, 3
Okay, we got a little closer this time (last time we lost 4-1), but as most people know, close only counts in hand grenades and horseshoes... :-P This was my first day in competition since my injury three and a half weeks ago. I played second doubles with Kyle “I just moved up as a substitute” Morris. When Coach Smith was introducing us, he gave all seven of us nicknames. First, there was Kyle, ususally known as Cinnamon, Baer; next was Steven, we call him Sharp, Dull; Adam “Florida” Helsel; at number one doubles we had Brett Weyant, called “Murry” because Coach [almost] never remembers his name, and Cory “I'm a loaf of bread” Stahlman. I was Trevvor “I pulled my hamstring” Clark.
Anyway, the three singles matches went down much like the last time we played Richland: Kyle and Adam lost, and Steven won. It looked as if Adam was going to win though; he blazed through his first set with a 6-2 win, but faltered in the second to force a third in which he also lost. Kyle was the last singles match on the court, as he lost in two hard-fought sets 7-5, 6-4. As of the 25th, I was supposed to play with Kellen yesterday, but he had some kind of arm injury I think, so Coach moved me back to second doubles with Kyle instead. After the fact though, he said he probably should've left us at first doubles, because we might've won the match that way! Kyle and I played two first-year guys, a junior and a senior. As we warmed up, it was clear that they hadn't had much experience playing, and their serves were far from consistent. That's the toughest part of the game to learn though, and they made up for it at the net, where they were excellent volleyers. Their volleys kept our matches closer than they should've been, as we won the first set 6-2 and the second 6-4. Kyle played a tremendous game, and only double faulted once I believe (as compared to the other three of us, who double faulted many more times than that!).

(Match #2 - Bedford, 3; Forest Hills, 2)
Bedford, 0; Somerset 5
Yep, we got skunked, and pretty badly, too. Somerset is always a good team, and according to Coach Siehl, we've never beaten them. We've been really close, with several matches going 3-2 or 4-3 in their favor, but today was a pretty sad loss. They won all five matches in two sets--not even Adam or Steven were able to force a third set. :-\ The guy I played had a good game; we played pretty closely, but he always seemed to edge me at the end. In the first set, I started attacking his second serves, which were “lollipops”--especially compared to his missle of a first serve. When he did get his first serve in, it was very good, and he scored more than one point off of them; however, he was far from consistent with it, so I picked up several points of my own off his second. He picked up on what I was doing pretty quickly, especially after I beat him in a couple games and pulled to only one game behind at 4-3. He started adopting my strategy, and the game quickly morphed into a net control game; whoever got there first won the point. Unfortunately, he was moving in quicker than me, and he took the first set 6-3 and the second 6-1. I really thought I could pull off a win, but such was not to be the case.

Bedford, 6; Hyndman, 1
First of all, I won't be writing about all of the tennis matches, simply because I won't be at all of them! I will report on the ones I compete in, though, so you'll still get an idea of how things are going.
Steven played #1 singles, I played #2, Adam was at #3, Corey played #4, and Ben had #5; Kyle and Kellen took care of #1 doubles, and Brett and Jeff played at #2. My match was a very long and drawn out process; what could've gone quickly had we each played our best, instead took 20 games plus an 8-6 tiebreaker to decide the match. I got off to a strong start, pulling ahead 3-0. John Glencoe, my Hyndman counterpart, responded with four straight games, putting the score at 4-3 in his favor. With encouragement from Adam--who was thoroughly plastering Hyndman's #3--I came back to get ahead at 5-4. From there up to 8-7, I maintained the lead, but never got more than one or two games ahead. Then in a big surge and turning point of the match, Glencoe won the next two games, going up 9-8 and needing only one more game to seal the match. At that point, I knew I had to buckle down and play, because I had not gone all that way just to lose at the finish (I was chiding myself in track and cross country comparisons). I concentrated on the ball, and tried to hit out better--something that I had done very little of all day--and I fought through the next two to gain the lead at 10-9. But then, just as Glencoe had done, I slacked off a little and let him come back in the 20th game to tie everything up at 10-10. By that time, Adam had won 10-1, Corey was in the process of winning 10-0, and Steven was coming back from a 6-1 deficit to win 10-7. Coach Siehl and the Hyndman coach came over and walked us through the tiebreaker. Instead of games, a tiebreaker is played on points; seven points wins the set, and one must win by at least two points. Once again, I started out strong, going ahead 4-0. But I double-faulted, and then Glencoe came back to 4-3. Similar to the game, it stayed close up to 6-6, but I won the last two points to take the tiebreaker and the match, which sealed the win for us (best of seven matches, and mine was the fourth win of the day). It was a tense match--I don't know if it was worse for me or the guys on the bench--and I had a great fan base cheering for me, which helped a lot. :-) It was a fine start to the season; not a blowout win, and not a dissapointing last-stretch loss, but a worked-for win. Next I should be playing against Somerset tomorrow afternoon, and from the weather forecast, it looks like it'll be a wonderful day for tennis!

After running today, I went down to the tennis courts to jump in on practice as I have for the past couple weeks. Once I had warmed up with Adam, Kyle, and Keith using the ball machine that Coach Smith had dug out, Coach Siehl had Adam and I play Steven and Ben in a set of doubles. It was sad early on; Adam and I both double faulted and lost the first two games! “2-0,” Steven said as he prepared to serve the third game. Coach's reaction was, “I can't believe it!” “That's the score.” “I know, I know, but I had my money on these guys [Adam and me]!” We assured him that we would make a comeback, and we did end up winning that game. However, Steven and Ben won the next two, putting them up 4-1. Then Adam and I proceeded to win five straight games to win the set! It was pretty exciting. :-D At one point, after we had tied it up at four-all, Adam and I went down ad out, so if we lost the next point, we'd be down 4-5, and they could take the next game for the set. We came through though, and then won the tenth game to cinch the set. If all goes well, next week at the first match against Hyndman, Adam and I will probably play first doubles after I play first or second singles and he plays third singles. That should be a good match.

For the third time this season, we played Westmont, but this time, more was on the line: states. For the third time this season, we started off pretty strong; Ryan was down 1-2, but came back 3-2, 4-3, 5-4; Ankit wasn't playing too badly either, only being down 1-2; then there was our first doubles team, which was absolutely dominating their match. Unfortunately, except for first doubles, things went downhill from there. Ryan lost 7-5 in his first set, Ankit failed to win another game in the first set and lost 6-1, and for Pete in third singles, dropped his first set 6-3 or 6-4. First doubles won their match in two sets, 6-1, 6-0, giving us a little hope since Pete was picking his game up, and Ryan was so close to winning as well. Jon and I went out and started second doubles, but we did very poorly. Although I only double-faulted once, I was having problems getting the ball back in play, and that's what killed us. I didn't feel overly badly about it though, since by the time we lost our first set, Ankit, Ryan, and Pete had all lost, clinching the match for Westmont. After that, Jon and I tried, but not very hard, as there wasn't much point to winning. As always, there are the ifs, but ifs won't get us to states, and although it was a dissapointing loss, it was something of an expected one. Even so, we played well, and there were some bright spots in the day: Ryan's hard fought singles match, and Kyle's and Tim's solid victory in their doubles match.

I was unable to play in the finals because of the LHAC meet, but as it turns out, my presence was not as crucial as Coach Siehl at first thought. With the help of Chris, on leave from the baseball team, Bedford boys' tennis won their fifth consecutive district team title, sweeping Tussey 5-0. Now, we head to the last stage before states, an inter-district match against Westmont, the District VI team champions.

Yesterday we played against third-seeded Windber to determine who would play Tussey for the championship today. The match was a repeat of last year; we swept them 5-0. Ankit played Windber's number one, who had beaten him the day before at district singles 7-5, 6-4. It was the complete opposite this time around, as Ankit won 6-0, 6-1! Ryan and Pete both had strong matches as well; Pete played his usual patient game and wore his opponent out. Coach put me at third singles with Jon, and we won 6-3, 6-1. The guys we played had some pretty good shots, especially on the forehand service return (the guy I had to serve to in the fore court drove the ball just over the net and right in the corner every time). When I finally was able to place a serve on his backhand side, he wasn't able to handle it. With the win, we advanced to the final against Tussey Mountain, which is today...as is the LHAC meet at Somerset. My tennis coach really wanted me to play today--even though my winning percentage is about 25; two wins in seven or eight matches I've played--but realized that track is my main sport, so he said to go to LHAC's. I'm glad he decided that, because I have a good chance of placing top three or four, so hopefully I won't dissapoint.