 Hello, and welcome into the Evan Clifton show. I'm Joe Wombo, joined now with Evan Clifton, head coach of the tennis teams. Coach, you guys host Lycoming over the weekend. And we're able to pull out a really strong victory bouncing back on the men's side. Sure. Yeah, on the men's side, it was a nice win for us. We knew we matched up well with Lycoming. We played them similarly last year. And a lot of the same guys in the lineup and things. So we started off, finally got that elusive double sweep that we've been missing. We switched things up. We had Mike Richmond playing two doubles for us today, against Lycoming, and then Robbie Coons into three doubles. And both those guys were huge in winning the second and third doubles matches that give us the sweep. So being up 3-0, going into singles, as we always say, is huge for us. It's huge to take that pressure off you. And then Brian came out and did what he's been doing, got another straight set win at singles to give us the 4-0 lead. Warren didn't have a pretty tough match at two and dropped that one, but then Doug clinched it for us in a really close match, seven, five, six, four, three singles. Peter P had a close match, lost in three sets. Mike Richmond making his singles debut for us, had a nice win, as did Kevin Sleitner at six singles. So it was a nice 7-2 win for our guys. And it's good to get back in the win column and should give us some momentum going into Messiah on Wednesday. And to the pad of those two guys that won their first singles matches, congratulations to them. On the women's side, a little bit of a different match. And that's been the tale of the season, whatever the women do, the men won't, or whatever the men do, the women won't. But they fall 5-4, but those are the types of matches you expect in this conference. Yeah, yeah, I mean, we knew it was going to be a tough match. Certainly we like one of these dual match days to get both teams to get a win at the same time. But that being said, the 5-4 loss to Lycoming, by no means is a real bad loss for us. It was a team we lost to relatively easily last year. So we knew it was going to be a tough match. We started off one doubles great. Jenna and Kelsey got another win at one. And then at two and three, we certainly didn't play as well. That's sort of the one area where it was disappointing. We didn't play nearly as well as we have the last few weeks, two and three doubles. So we went down in singles down to one, sort of behind the eight ball a little bit, but we bounced right back. Jenna got a straight set win at one. Kirsten had a close match, but a good straight set win for her at two singles. And that gave us the lead. Kelsey was down a set in three singles, fought back, forced a third set, won that match in three sets to give us a 4-2 lead. And then after we lost to four singles, it was 4-3. And then we were down a set at both five and six singles, won the second set, the fourth, a full third set in each. We were up a break in one and had a match point at another. But both were really tough matches. I mean, both girls played really well, Colleen and Nina, and unfortunately, we just weren't able to pull all the close matches out that we needed. But you know, like in this conference, that's what you can expect. And those five, four matches, where it comes down to the last match on the court for a young team like we are, those are really invaluable. And that's something that the next time we're in that situation, having that experience will be that much easier for us to pull it out. Yeah, let's talk about that next situation that might come up rather quickly. You guys are gonna be playing a lot this week on both sides. Not so many double duels, double matches like you had on Saturday. But what are these experiences gonna do as you guys play this schedule out? Well, I mean, certainly, I mean, for the girls right away, we play tomorrow, we play Messiah, you know, defending conference champs and they're a very, very good team as we saw last year and in the Mac in this fall. So we've gotta sort of have, you know, we gotta take the confidence from the things that we did well on Saturday and then the things maybe we didn't do so well, like two and three doubles, just forget it and we've gotta move on and we're gonna have a much different challenge tomorrow. So we've gotta be ready for that. But you know, a lot of the girls, especially the way we played in singles, we should be feeling good about that. So our singles games are coming around. We get two and three doubles, you know, back to the way we were playing last few weeks. You know, we'll have a good shot tomorrow. And on the men's side, you're gonna have to keep riding what you guys were able to accomplish on Saturdays. You guys play Messiah as well on Wednesday and then you guys both have Albright. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, for the guys, it's gonna be another, again, defending conference champs on the men's side as well, Messiah is. So Wednesday, that match is gonna be tough for us. It's a match that was a real dogfight last year. We were up three, one and up a break and two up a set and break and two other matches. We weren't able to pull it out last spring. So, you know, it's a lot of the same guys this year on their team. So we're gonna be, we know we're in for a tough match and we're happy it's home. You know, hopefully that we can use that homefield advantage a bit. And, you know, for a lot of guys, it's gonna be, you know, for Brian, this could be a match that might ultimately decide who's conference player of the year. So him and Tim Dunn will have a really good battle at one single. Certainly one I encourage everyone else to come out and watch. It'll be a great match. Absolutely. I was gonna mention that, you know, defending conference player of the year against, you know, one that was in the running all for his entire career. Sure. Yeah, well, so Dunn finished second in the conference player of the year, but Saturday when we play Albright, we'll play Matt Moyo at one who was, who is the two-time conference player of the year. That being said, Dunn just beat Moyo the other day, two and one. So, you know, both matches will be tough for us Albright and Messiah. Both are really good opportunities for Brian, you know, to sort of put himself in that conversation and maybe even solidify his standing as, you know, the best one or two singles player in the conference. So, you know, it's gonna be a tough week, a lot of matches for us. We're not gonna have a ton of time to practice in between, so we've, you know, we've gotta keep the momentum going and build off at each match. Well, neck and neck in the conference player of the year race there, if you can call it that. We'll be very excited to watch these two matches for you. Good luck this week, Coach. Thank you. He's Evan Clifton. I'm Joe Wamba, and this has been the Evan Clifton Show.