Making a Racket: Rain, rain go away edition

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Back in my high school tennis playing days (well before any of the current players were even born I might add!), there was this one road trip my high school team took from Salem to Albany. My team had been losing. And losing a lot. So one of the seniors gave us a peptalk in the team van on the way to the match. This peptalk was epic. Right along the lines of Bluto’s speech in the movie “Animal House.” We were pumped. We were excited. There was no way we were going to lose this day. … but then the moment we got out of the van it rained. Doh!

Yep, welcome to the joys of spring sports weather.

It does seem that there’s been more match cancellations/reschedules in and around Clark County as of late than matches played.  And with spring break next week, many matches that would have happened this week have been moved to the week of April 13 and beyond.

As they say, check your local listings.

Hey, it could be worse … Roger Federer posted this on his Facebook page on Wednesday (no April Fool’s joke here, burrrrr):

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On to some three-set highlights since my last blog posting:

• Battle Ground had a pair of three-set wins against Heritage on March 26. Freshman Andrea Besara, playing No. 1 singles, came back from a set down for a 3-6, 6-1, 6-1 win, and Natalie Andrus won at No. 3 singles 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (4).
• Fort Vancouver’s Holly Ta had a comeback win at No. 2 singles against Evergreen, winning 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (2) on March 27.
• Mountain View’s Emily Kuo came back for a 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 win at No. 2 singles for the Thunder’s point against Prairie on March 27.
• In the same dual match, Prairie doubles teams scored two points against Mountain View with three-set victories. Josie Sullivan and Hailey Miracle won at No. 1 doubles 3-6, 7-6 (3), 6-3; and Bilen Solscheid and Hanaila Starks won at No. 3 doubles 6-2, 5-7, 6-4.
• Battle Ground’s Natalie Andrus won a three-set match at No. 3 singles against Union 6-3, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (5) on March 27.
• Heritage’s No. 2 doubles team of Madison Singleton and Aryn Allen won against Hockinson 6-3, 3-6, 6-4.

Why focus on just the three-set matches? Because they can often decide a team victory in dual matches, and coming back from a set down it also an accomplishment worth noting. Yes, there is the other side of the net (I’ve been on the losing end many times) and losing in three sets is tough, so I’ll be on the lookout for players who may have been on the losing end in one match and rebound to win in another. Those are big accomplishments too.

NOTE: These highlights were what was reported to us at The Columbian. Not every match that has been played has been reported for print.

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It’s great to see so many players turn out for girls tennis. Several teams have reported numbers in the 50s and 60s. When Evergreen and Skyview played their dual match on March 27 there were 22 matches played across varsity, JV and C squads.

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The WIAA confirmed its allocations to state for 2014-16.

With no bi-district tournament prior to state, 4A Greater St. Helens League will get two singles/two doubles to state this year and just one next season. Yes, coaches have expressed concern about the one state berth while at the same time hoping to get a bi-district tournament in place for next season.

The 3A GSHL, which does have a bi-district tournament with District 3, gets five girls singles/doubles to state this year and six next year. For boys it is the reverse with six singles/doubles this year and five next year.

The 2A GSHL gets three singles/doubles to state both this year and next.

For the complete allocations list, click HERE.

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With no matches during spring break, the next Making a Racket blog post won’t be until at least April 15 or 16. Hopefully the weather will cooperate in order to get some photos taken of actual matches.

And as always, any story ideas or your own photos are very much welcomed. Email either me directly jeff.klein@columbian.com or to sports@columbian.com.