April 26, 2004

Dear Slug Tennis Fans,

The good news first..... We rocked at Ojai!!! Justin Coupe got things started by beating Claremont's 4 player Eric Chow, a top 10 Nor Cal junior, by scores of 7-5,4-6,6-1 in an extremely well played match. It has been such a pleasure to have Justin on the team and it was a real treat to see him play so well in his final collegiate event. Andrew Cohen won his first match and then played a great match against Claremont's number three player David Oehm. Andrew came back from a 3-5 deficit in the third set to tie the match at 5 all. He had two break points but broke a string in his fourth racket of the day. Playing with a teammates racket he lost 6-7,7-6,7-5. Bryce Parmelly has been playing very well of late and set the tone for the tournament by defeating one of the top players in the region, Redland's number one player Brian Murphy. Bryce won 6-7(6),6-4,6-1 in his best match ever. Matt Brunner played well in defeating Shara Surabi of Cal Lutheran 6-4,6-2 in the second round before falling to John-Michael Cham-a-koon in the round of 16 6-3,6-2. Shane Templeman got a bye and then defeated Redland's Ashwin Bhargava 2-6,6-2,6-2. Shane played beautifully in the second and third sets moving well and attacking more than usual. In the third round, Shane served for the match against on of our regions best players before falling to JR Hall of Pomona 2-6,7-6(3),6-2. I am sure Shane will take some great lessons from the match and I have to give credit to JR for playing well at key times.

Kevin Casey continues his great stretch of quality matches breezing into the semifinals with the loss of only 9 games! He beat Quin Calderan of Cal Lutheran 6-4,6-0 and then Kyle Ellison of Claremont 6-1,6-1 to set up a match with teammate Matt Seeberger in the semifinals. Matt also rolled the opposition winning his round of 16 match 6-2,6-0 over Andrew Elling of Redlands and David Oehm of Claremont 6-1,6-2 in the quarters. Not only were the scores dominating the way he blew them off the court was wonderful to watch! Senior Brian Casey breezed through the first couple of matches but had a tougher road in his quarter final match against Redland's Michael Thoeresz. Down 4-5 in the third set, his opponent had to retire due to severe cramping. Brian was still focused on coming back and it is a shame to have such a great match decided in this manner. Having three Slugs in the semifinals of the regionals is quite a feat and the semifinals were both quality matches. Kevin and Brian Casey each won the first sets and it looked like we may have a brother-brother battle in the final. Matt Seeberger had other plans as he took it up a notch and started dictating off the ground winning the next two set in decided fashion to reach the final of his first individual college event! Brian lost the second set 6-1 and looked gassed! As he always seems to do, he found a reserve of energy and came back to win the final set 6-4 to set up an all Slug final. In front of TV cameras, a huge crowd, and playing next to the Pac 10 men's final, Brian and Matt had a great battle which Matt won 7-6(5), 6-1. The crowd was treated to some great points in this hotly contested battle!

In doubles, we also had some great results as two of our teams made the semifinals. Shane Templeman and Matt Seeberger defeated the number two seeds, JR Hall and David Frankle of Pomona, in the quarter finals 8-6. In the semifinals, they lost to Claremonts top team in a very well played match also by a score of 8-6. Matt Brunner and Kellen Ali-Christie lost a tough one by one break where neither seems to return well in the same game. The Casey boys beat Claremont's three team in the first round, PLU's top team in the second round, and the Cal Lutheran's team that beat the top seeds in the first round to reach the semifinals. There they beat Claremont's two team in a great match to reach the finals at Libby park. In 1998, our third team reached the final and that year we won the NCAA team tournament so I think this is a good sign. Kevin and Brian played very well in the final before losing 6-3,7-6 to end a great tournament. I am very proud of all of our efforts and these results reflect well on the upcoming NCAA tournament.

The tough news is that as the two seed in the west, we will have to travel to Claremont to play Redlands in the first round of the NCAA tournament. This means for the first time in NCAA history the 2,3, and 4 ranked teams in the country will play for one spot at the final site. The schedule is being finalized as I write this but we will play Saturday afternoon and the winner to play against Claremont on Sunday at 12:00. Many people tried to avoid this difficult situation but in the end it is a policy dictated by geography that puts us in this tough situation. We will be ready and hopefully be tougher for it going into the final site. Thanks again for all our great Slug fans and I hope we will have you in force at Claremont on Saturday May 1!
Love and best wishes to you all.

Coach Hansen and Coach Taylor

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