April 3, 2004

Dear Slug Tennis Fans,

On a beautiful Spring day, UC Santa Cruz defeated the #5 ranked Div ll Tritons of San Diego 4-3. The Slugs set the tone for the match by sweeping all three doubles matches. First off were Shane Templeman and Matt Seeberger who played at their dominating best in winning 8-2 at two doubles. Our positioning continues to improve and as usual we returned very well. Next off were the Mt. Shasta boys Brian and Kevin Casey who won 8-3 at three doubles. Kevin continues to improve his movement at the net and Brian served, returned and hit topspin lobs very well. Matt Brunner and Kellen Ali-Christie continued their winning ways with an 8-6 win at one doubles.

The singles were a much better fight. First off was Andrew Cohen who is on a hot streak! This was his 10th straight win, and he maintained our doubles momentum winning 6-3,6-1 over Seth Spector of Sacramento at six singles. Local Jeff Wilson kept things close with a win over Slug Shane Templeman at three singles by scores of 6-1,6-3. I really thought Shane had things turned around in the second, but Jeff served out of many break chances to bring the team score to 2-1 in favor of UCSC. Matt Seeberger played brilliantly to put us up 3-1 with a 6-1,6-3 win at two singles. He returned lights out and dominated with his groundstrokes. Matt Brunner continues to improve his volleys but fell 4-6,6-3,6-2 at four singles bringing the match score to 3-2 with the Casey boys in tough battles at one and five singles. Kevin won the first set in a breaker and iced the match with a 7-6,7-5 win where he wore him opponent into submission. With the match iced, Bryan Swatt of UCSD came from behind to defeat our senior warrior Brian Casey by scores of 4-6,6-4,6-4. In the end both players were suffering from cramps as they both did a great deal of running in this well played match.

Next up for UC Santa Cruz is Div l rival UC Davis. We were rained out earlier in the year and rescheduled this match for Easter Sunday April 11 at 1:00 at UC Davis. I hope many of our great family and fans can join us, and I am sorry for the inconvenience this scheduling may cause.


Best Wishes,
Bob Hansen, Palmer Taylor, Thomas Oechel and the Slug Team

P.S. Thanks so much to all our wonderful fans!!!!! There are a growing number and we needed all their support in this titanic battle. Your support is much appreciated.
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