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Thursday, April 24
This was an exciting year for the University of Denver
athletic department as we transitioned from members of the WAC to The Summit
League. The tennis teams were given the
opportunity to be the first DU programs to host a Summit League Championship
and we were all excited to begin the postseason at home as the No. 1 seeds in
both the men’s and women’s draws. After
a strong afternoon practice at the tournament site, we headed home, showered,
and left for the pre-tournament awards banquet.
The dinner featured some excellent cheesecake that we enjoyed while
striking it big on the league awards: we won the regular season conference
title, placed six players on the All-Summit League team (including myself),
freshman Diogo Rocha received Newcomer of the Year Award, and sophomore Henry
Craig landed the Player of the Year.
While we were honored to receive the accolades, we knew we had to stay
focused on performing well over the weekend to secure the automatic NCAA bid.
Friday, April 25
Fortunately, as the No. 1 seeds in the draw, we received a
bye and didn’t have to play in the first day of the tournament. We had another afternoon practice at the
tournament site while our potential opponents were battling it out on the court
behind us. Although we had swept regular
season conference play, you could already tell the level of energy in the other
match was very high. Everyone was going to come out with intense focus, so we
knew we had to get ourselves in the groove for tomorrow. It was pretty breezy
out, which was a good indicator of how the rest of the weekend’s conditions
were supposed to play out, and gave us some good practice dealing with the
elements (playing in the wind isn’t particularly fun or easy). Our practice ended well and we were all very
anxious to start competing. A large,
high-spirited team dinner in the dining hall followed by watching some playoff
hockey ended an early night. I was
pumped to compete in my last conference tournament as a Pioneer!
Saturday, April 26
The men’s side was fortunate to be given the later match
times, so I got to sleep in before driving the team van over to Perkins for our
traditional pre-match breakfast.
Finished my omelet and headed over to the site while listening to some
warm up music to get me in the zone. IUPUI pulled it out against Western
Illinois yesterday and would be our matchup, which gave us some confidence
since we took care of business against them the week before. Our team this year is very young with six
freshman (of nine players on the roster) and with the pressure of being the top
seed there was some nervousness, as is normal, and I felt some nerves too,
since it was potentially my last home match.
These nerves quickly subsided though as the guys played a strong (and
close) doubles point to steal a 1-0 lead.
I don’t play doubles so watching was very nerve-wracking, but finding
that pivotal first point was huge in setting the tone for the rest of the day
as we cruised to a 4-0 victory. While we
were excited to get through to the finals, we were on a mission to seal the
deal. It had been a long day of tennis
so we went home, grabbed another team dinner, and called it a day.
Sunday, April 27
Championship Day!
Another glorious late match time allowed us to sleep in and get fully
recovered from yesterday. IPFW won a
solid match the day before against SDSU and we knew they would be very excited
to play. The weather was rainy and the
final would be played indoors.
Excitingly, the women had also advanced to the finals, so we ate a quick
team lunch and headed over to the site to watch. They didn’t waste any time and won a solid
4-0 match to secure an auto-bid! This
was great in setting the tone for our match.
Like yesterday, there were some butterflies, but getting a win under our
belt helped make us more confident.
Despite being held at an alternate site, the pep band and cheerleaders
came out to kick off the match, which was absolutely awesome. We had a nice crowd in attendance and they
helped energize our way to winning another tight doubles point to take the 1-0
lead. We came out strong in singles and
grabbed five of six first sets. Diogo
was on an absolute mission at No. 2 singles and gave us a quick second
point. IPFW stepped up their game
though, and made it very tight on several courts, including my own, as we split
sets. At No. 3 singles, Alex Gasson
pulled out a tight tiebreaker to win the match and put the team up 3-0. I didn’t know what the scores were on the
other side of the facility, where No. 5 and 6 singles were playing, but you
could tell they were close along with the match at No. 1. I had the blessing of being able to clinch
the team championship with a win in the third set to give us our second
consecutive conference championship! So
excited that we had the opportunity to host and both programs were able to pull
out the victories! Up next, NCAA’s!!
-Alex Clinkenbeard
Don’t forget to check out the next
edition of My Championship Experience as it follows the Softball Championship, May 8-10 and throughout the 2013-14 season for
coverage at each of The Summit League Championships.
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