Coach's Brief: Norwood Boys Tennis 2012 Season

From Coach John Churchill

Norwood 0, Needham 5

1s: Owen Smith (12) 0-6, 0-6 Matt Betian (11)
2s: Liam Kelly (11) 1-6, 2-6 Sam Coiten (9)
3s: Nathan Jones (9) 3-6, 2-6 Jonah Simon (10)
1d: Walter Aspinwall (11) and Michael Breen (11) 0-6, 2-6 James
Degan (12) and Hanny Smith (12)
2d: Ben Richwine (12) and Marco El Massih (12) 2-6, 2-6 Jacob
Miller (9) and Matt Levine (11)

Needham is the reigning Division I state champion. They did not play their top players, but they are a deep team with a lot of talent. Considering what we were up against, I was really pleased with how we played. None of the guys gave up, and they made their opponents beat them. There were a lot of great points in all matches that often were not represented in the scores. Marco El Massih got his first start ever and earned four games along with doubles player Ben Richwine. It was a good moment for the seniors despite the loss.

Matches like this do not get us down at all. We keep inching forward in our ability to compete. The majority of my guys did not play tennis before high school. We have a good concept of our abilities. Although we have lost several close matches this year, this team is still moving forward. We had a couple of great practices in the last week. I expect the trend of improvement to continue into next year with the players that we will retain because of their enjoyment for the sport and their motivation to get better and compete.

This year, we were quite even with teams like Dedham and Natick. We have managed to stay ahead of Braintree in spite of their constant improvement. Our results indicate that we may have moved past Milton this year. We easily could have two more wins (than the five we now have). We had a last minute loss to Milton in the first match of the season (before our team was established) and also a tight three-set deciding loss in Dedham (a tough place to play because they only have three courts, making the doubles wait).

We were just short of teams like Weymouth and Foxborough (both playoff contenders). We had two losses against both, but we had several three-setters with each team, and we could have picked up wins against either team. The losses were not failures on our part. Rather, I attribute the results to having less experience than our opponents. We started off the year with five new varsity players and only two returners (Owen and Liam).

Next year, I expect to have five guys with regular experience from this year and three other guys who have had at least one varsity match. Our JV matches this year have also been more competitive indicating our team's depth. The losses to Weymouth and Foxborough have been of the "good" variety, meaning they have been catalysts to the motivation of this team.

We are not done yet... We will be aiming for winning two more, starting with Walpole on Wednesday. I expect this match will be quite close based on their results. Walpole lost twice to Dedham, but they squeezed out a win against Weymouth. To me that says the match could go either way. We have played some of our best matches at home, including wins over Natick and Dedham. Again, we will have to show up with our best to win.