6. Winning the CVC Team Tournament as a Freshman

As said in the last Top 10 story, I won the conference tournament individually all four years for tennis. Unfortunately, the same could not be said in regards to winning the team championship. However I was fortunate to be a part of the winning team during my freshman season. So I’m here to tell you a story so here it is (Did I do a good job with my prologue?):

Coming in as a freshman to the tennis team I specifically remember a cold day driving to Heisley Racquet Club with my coach Mr. Walker and we were talking about how the CVC conference had changed for tennis. In our division now we had 6 teams (Aurora, West Geauga, Harvey, Kirtland and Wickliffe). So Mr. Walker and I were talking discussing the conference and we knew the teams to beat were Aurora and West Geauga. So come season time, we had a dual match against both of those schools. We were to play West Geauga at home and Aurora on the road at Western Reserve Racquet Club. So the first week of the season we played West G and won our match (I believe 5-0) easily. So with West Geauga out of the way all we had to worry about was Aurora. After winning our other 4 conference matches, the regular season title was between us and Aurora. In our conference, the regular season counted for 50% of the total and the tournament counted for 50% as well. So theoretically, you only had to win one or the other to be crowned a conference co-champion at least. On our way to Aurora, we had no idea what to expect out of them. Seeing their box scores of previous matches in the papers, we were not very confident going into the match. We were that unconfident, especially with Brennan Sailors (I love you breezy) at 3rd singles. So to try to "stack" our lineup a little bit, we sacrificed our 3rd singles match and put Brennan at doubles. This was our normal lineup:

1st Singles: Dan Walker 2nd Singles: Myself 3rd Singles: Brennan Sailors
1st Doubles: Vrabec/E Sailors 2nd Doubles: Kifer/B Walker  (Or Emily Hinton)
This was what we changed our lineup to.
1st Singles: Dan Walker 2nd Singles: Myself 3rd Singles: Nick Kifer
1st Doubles: B Walker/B Sailors 2nd Doubles: Vrabec/E Sailors
With this lineup, we hoped either me or Dan won and both of our doubles won.
At the match, Dan unfortunately lost his match to a very good player named Nick Von Roden (who had beaten me before as well). To my surprise, I won my match quite easily after a tight first set. At this time I first thought that I could possibly win the conference tournament invidually and be a CVC Champion. And with our sacrifice at third singles, the score was 2-1 Aurora. Therefore we had to win both doubles matches to win the conference regular season title. After a big win at 2nd doubles by Ryan and Elise, it came down to a third set tiebreak at 1st Doubles. It was a tough one to watch as we ended up losing, costing us a regular season title. However, with seeing how weak the Aurora 3rd Singles player was, we thought we'd have a better chance if Brennan went back to 3rd singles and we went back to our normal lineup for the tournament.
Tournament Day at Perry:
After all of the players from Aurora and Perry making it to the finals of each position, the tournament pretty much came down to a dual match again. Whichever team won at least 3 individual titles would win the tournament. Dan lost his match in the first singles championship against Von Roden, but Brennan picked up the win at third singles to win his first ever individual title (and to even the match out to 1-1). Onto my match: For me, this was my biggest match I had ever played in. Just knowing I was so close to being a conference champion, as well as helping my team out to be the team champions. I got up 3-1 early playing a tough opponent. However, then I saw a gym class from our school come out to support us. If my nerves weren't already all over the place, that certainly did the trick. Tightening up, my opponent got back to 3-3 and I was starting to get frustrated and even more nervous. But that's when it clicked. I wanted to be a CVC Champion and that was the time to go. I then played solid the rest of the match, eventually winning 6-4, 6-2. Only a freshman and winning this tournament meant so much to me and helped motivate me for the rest of my tennis in 9th grade. So with that our team was up 2-1 for the team title. That means, only 1 of our doubles teams had to win and we'd win the whole thing. Ironically, both of those matches went to the third set. All we had to do was win one more set! Our 2nd doubles I believe lost that deciding set pretty easily, tying up the team score to 2-2. It came down to our 1st doubles team who was down in the second set. After looking down and out, Ryan and Elise played their best tennis of the whole season to help us win the CVC Championship! We were all excited especially after every point in that third set being s nerve wracking I could barely watch. Nonetheless we did it! It was just amazing to think that I was a CVC Champion, a feat a lot of Perry athletes worked for and could never get. And especially as a freshman too. I remember seeing how exciting Mr. Walker was for us, especially since that was our first title since 1998 (ironically his son was on that team). I will never forget that day, making that number 6 on my Top 10 High School Sports Memories Countdown.

Goodnight,
Fry That Chicken