March 30, 2004

Dear Slug Tennis Fans,

Spring break went by in a blur as we played five matches in three days. Overall it was a wonderful trip where we got to play some quality matches and I was able to get the entire team involved. We traveled with 15 players thanks to the wonderful support of our many boosters, and I was very impressed with the quality of play from the top of the team all the way down the line.

We opened against Claremont College and did not play up to our normal standard. Coming off a great effort against Div l powerhouse Washington University, I expected to play well. Our doubles has definitely improved and we were in all three matches. After Brian and Kevin Casey won at 3 doubles 8-6 in a very solid effort, we were up a break at 1 and on serve at 2. Shane Templeman and Matt Seeberger were doing a great job of fighting off break points before dropping an 8-6 decision. They fought of 5 match points before losing. At one doubles, Matt Brunner and Kellen Ali-Christie served for the match but faltered 9-7. Much credit must go to John Michael Cham-a-koon who is one of the best doubles players in the country.

The loss of the doubles point carried over to the singles as Cham-a-Koon was pumped up and played the best singles match I have ever seen him play to beat Brian Casey at one singles. Brother Kevin Casey got us back in the match with a 6-4,6-1 win at 5 singles. Next off was Shane Templeman who lost his first dual match of the year falling 6-2,6-2 to David Oehm at three singles. Down 3-1 we battled back to win at two singles as Matt Seeberger regrouped after dropping the second set to dominate the third in winning 6-3,1-6,6-1. We lost the fourth point when Matt Brunner lost 6-3,6-3 at four singles to Eric Chow. Andrew Cohen continued his steady play at six singles winning 7-5,6-4.

From this match forward we rolled! Against Linfield College we won 7-0 with straight set victories at 2,3,5, and 6. Bryce Parmelly played six singles filling in for Andrew Cohen and performed very well. Brian Casey rallied from the loss of the first set to win 2-6,6-2,6-1. Matt Brunner won a breaker for the third finishing strong with a 10-3 margin in the set tiebreaker.

Later that same day, we played Occidental College and played our second team. After sweeping the doubles, we again won four of the six matches in straight sets. Kellen Ali-Christie played one of his first singles matches of the year and played super well in winning 6-1,6-0. Henry Hasegawa won at three singles 6-2,6-4. Marco DiAddezio won easily at five singles, and Brian Batsel dominated at six singles. Justin Coupe beat a solid Nor Cal player in Brett Baker in a match tiebreaker 10-8 at one singles and Michael Kaiser won in three sets at four singles. It was so nice for me to see the second team play even though I wasn't able to watch the five and six matches at the Oxy facility.

Next up was #4 ranked Middlebury College. With four top 30 ranked players in their singles lineup, we had our work cut out. Our doubles responded to the challenge as we won at one and two doubles. Shane Templeman came out on fire, and his tenacity and focus was shared by partner Matt Seeberger as they won 8-3 in their best match of the season. They returned well but also were much more aggressive at the net and dominated from the start. Kellen Ali-Christie and Matt Brunner were solid throughout and served well in winning 8-6 to give us the critical doubles point.

In singles, our lone senior Brian Casey led things off with a dominating performance winning 6-1,6-2 at one. Next off was Matt Seeberger who played his most consistent and solid match of the year winning 6-2,6-2. Matt Brunner played Middlebury's number one player from last year and lost 6-0,6-4 to tighten the match. Andrew Cohen served for the match up a set and 5-2 but was broken. Serving at 5-4 he went down love 40 and had to fight off one other break point before battling back to ice the match 6-2,6-4. Shane Templeman played well before losing 7-5,7-6 at three singles to bring the match score to 4-2. At this point Kevin Casey was down a set and 2-5 against a very solid player ranked 23 nationally, George Mayer. Kevin started attacking better and ran down some amazing balls in rallying to win five straight games to win the second set and send the match into a match tiebreaker for the third. Cramping at times Kevin won the breaker 10-8 in one of the best matches I have seen this year to give the Slugs a 5-2 win. I was super proud of the effort and I know Middlebury will be one of the teams to beat at the NCAA tournament.

Our final match of the trip was against La Verne and our second team again stepped up winning 7-0. Bryce Parmelley and Kellen Ali-Christie won 8-2 at one doubles and played beautifully! Brian Batsel and Marco DiAddezio dominated at three doubles, and Joe Scott and Henry Hasegawa come through at two doubles. All the singles were straight sets with Bryce winning 6-3,7-6 at one singles, Justin Coupe served double bagels at two singles, Joe Scott stepped up at three singles winning 7-5,7-6 and we won at four, five, and six dropping only one game. I am proud of everyone's effort at Marco, Brian and Michael Kaiser rolled.


Thanks again and Go Slugs!
Coach Hansen

P.S. Thanks again so much to the Ralph and Vivian Batsel, Annie Cohen and Mandy DiAddezio for all their help with food and shelter!!!! It was great to have so many Slug fans with the Parmelleys and Kaisers also in attendance. Overall we had a great trip and look forward to two matches tomorrow in Santa Cruz before the start of Spring Quarter on Monday. We play Chapman at 10:00 and Southwestern from Texas at 2:00 Sunday at the East Fieldhouse courts.
(Click here to sign up for email updates.)