 Hello, and welcome to the Evan Clifton Show. I'm Joe Wombo, joined now with Evan Clifton, head coach of the tennis teams. And Coach, talk a little bit about those matches that you guys had last week. And boy, what a big one against Al Verney on the men's side. Yeah, for both teams, they were very close matches. On the men's side, luckily enough, we were able to pull it out. And it was a very back and forth match. On the women's side, unfortunately, we weren't. We had a quick, easy, early leads in one, two, and three doubles on the women's side. And then one and two doubles, we just couldn't quite capitalize. One doubles, we got behind. Once we got that early break, we gave up. Two early breaks right back. And then just didn't really recover. And hats off to those girls from Al Verney, the number one team. They played really well. They tested us a lot. They returned down the line hard, and they attacked us down the line, and they were a little bit more active at the net. That's why they won. Two doubles, we started quick, like we did on the other courts on the women's side. We had a 5-2 lead. And then the other team made some adjustments. They attacked us at the baseline, and they stopped giving us balls at the net to put away. And we didn't have much of an answer for that. So there's certainly some things that we're going to work on this next week in practice and try to get cleaned up before we play hood on Wednesday. But also, three doubles on the women's side took care of business. They got the early break, and they never let go of it. And they cruised to win there. And then so we lost seven, two on the women's side, but we had a lot of really close matches. Jenna lost at one with one break in each set. Same thing with Kirsten at two singles, one break in each set. And then Christina had a pretty close match. I think it was five and four, five and three at four singles. And Colleen had a close match. She had her early lead, 5-2 in the first set. And the other girl made some adjustments, similar to doubles, and just we didn't quite recover there. But Nina Brett's got a nice win versus six singles, which we sort of expected. And that was nice for her to keep that going. On the men's side, it was a similar match, probably even closer. One, two, and three doubles were all decided by one break. Luckily, one doubles we were able to pull out the win, nine, seven. And same thing with two doubles, eight, six. Three doubles, it was a back and forth match. They got the break on us late, and we just couldn't really recover. And Brian had a really tough match at one, lost in three sets. Warned and Lye had a great match versus two. He came out and just probably played the best singles that he's played all year, one, two, and one. And dug Vaughn at a tough match. And it was interesting. We had, so after doubles and after our first two singles matches, we were up for one. So it was looking pretty good. We only needed that one more match to clinch. Brian had just forced a third set in singles. So we were looking pretty good. Mike was in a third set at singles. And so we thought we were going to pull those out. And, you know, unluckily enough, we didn't. We lost those two matches, and then we lost three singles. And all of a sudden, we were up for one, and now we're tied at four all with one match left. And Peter Apia was down a set in five, two. So it was certainly a dire time for us. We were looking at a pretty bad collapse and something that would have really hurt our playoff chances. But luckily enough, Peter Apia, when we needed it most, he played great. I mean, he came out and he really, he won nine games in a row from that point on, won the second set, and then ran away with the third set six, one, and clinched the win for us. That was huge. That was a season-saving win for us. Absolutely. Peter has been clutched for us in the past, and it was nice to see him step up the way he did. Yeah, you mentioned both of my next two points with Peter being clutched for you guys on the men's side, and then the win against Alvernia starting to develop this playoff picture that we're looking at. Talk a little bit more indefinitely about both of those guys, or Peter being clutched for you. And what you're going to need to lean on those situations as these matches continue. Yeah, I mean, it was similar, you know, sort of the same encouraging signs we saw against Albright, we saw against Alvernia. So both five-four wins and both wins, we needed to clinch with the bottom of our lineup. And earlier in the spring, playing the tougher teams, the Juniatas, Salisbury's Gouchers, that sort of thing, that was, we weren't able to do that. It was, you know, we might get some wins at the top, one and two singles, or one doubles, and that sort of thing. So it was nice to see guys like Peter and Pia and Kevin Sleitner and Peter and Mike against Albright all step up and get wins for us in the clutch, because ultimately, usually there's bottom three singles matches at the last three on. So if you have a very close match that gets down to the very last match, chances are it's one of those three guys that are going to be playing, it's going to be up to them whether we win or lose sometimes. So, and we're going to need that in the playoffs. Alvernia is a very good team that if we had lost to them, you know, they very much could be ahead of us in the playoff picture. So it's a good thing that we got that win on the men's side. You know, it's possible we could clinch a playoff spot with a win against Hood tomorrow. Certainly could do so with a win against Hood and then beating Arcadia next Saturday, senior day. You know, so really we're just positioning ourselves, hopefully get that top two seed in the conference tournament. It's what we want. We want a home game first round of the playoffs. You mentioned those matches from earlier in the season against the Gouchers and the Salisbury's. What have those experiences done for you in this moment now? Yeah, I think similar to a lot of our out-of-conference schedules like the matches we played at spring break and things with teams that are, you know, we played Division II Shepherd and teams that are sort of a little bit higher caliber than what we play in our conference at the moment. Just to help, you know, prepare us, get us used to that higher level of play where we've got to play closer to perfect tennis to just compete sometimes so that when we play teams like Alvernia and Albright, especially in the pressure situations, we know, hey, we've already hung with guys tougher than what we're playing right now, like to give them the confidence to be able to relax, go for their shots in the pressure situation. And luckily enough, it looks like it's playing off this last week. So, you know, we'll need to continue that against Hood and Arcadia and certainly as we head into the Mac playoffs. Well, coach, I appreciate your time this week and every week, and we wish you the best of luck in the schedule that's coming up for you. Thank you very much. He's Evan Clifton, I'm Joe Wamba, and this has been the Evan Clifton Show.