Sports - Sports News

POSTED: Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008

COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT: Western tennis club gets best of both worlds

Senior Sam Rechtin might well have been able to play NCAA tennis at least at the small-college level, but he has no regrets competing with Western Washington University’s club team.

The same can be said of juniors Kate Stewart and Jordan Reni and sophomore Dylan Robert Olbrich. All four accomplished much in high school tennis, but each fell in love with Western while visiting. They decided Bellingham was the place for them, especially from the standpoint of a balance between education and other opportunities.

Fortunately for each, they discovered high-caliber tennis at Western, even though the Vikings no longer field NCAA squads.

“Our club team has qualified for the club nationals all eight years they’ve had the event,” said Rechtin, who is serving as men’s cap-tain. “There’s definitely the opportunity for great tennis here.”

The eighth annual United States Tennis Association National Campus Championship will be held April 16-18 in Surprise, Ariz. Western qualified by finishing third behind the University of Victoria and the University of Oregon in a field of 24 colleges at the recent Pacific Northwest Championships.

“Considering the experience I’ve had in the classrooms, on the court and everywhere else at Western, it’s led me to believe I’ve had a better overall experience than I would have otherwise,” said Rechtin, who played No. 1 singles as a junior and senior on a Wenatchee High team that won Class 4A state titles both years. “I would gladly make the same decision all over again.

“I have a close friend who went to a small college to play tennis, and he played only two seasons because he didn’t want tennis to be-come such a big part of his life,” Rechtin said. “Club tennis at Western is a wonderful experience.”

Rechtin said the players especially admire their No. 1 performer, Sehome graduate Ari Adelstein. He had been on scholarship at Ore-gon before a spate of injuries led him to finish his education at Western. “Ari is an awesome player,” Rechtin said. “He’s really something to see.”

Rechtin wound up with the captain’s role this year — he and women’s co-captains Amy Diehl and Annalise Owen serve as the team’s “coaches” — but he said many decisions are arrived at on a mutual basis.

“By no means am I a dictator,” Rechtin said. “And I still get stuck picking up tennis balls after practice.” Stewart, Olbrich and Reni are among the club’s top players, but competition is keen for spots on the 12-person traveling squad. Unlike NCAA tennis, there are mixed doubles matches as well as men’s and women’s singles and doubles.

“We actually have too many good players — about 30 in all,” said Rechtin, who hopes this year’s team can surpass the bronze medal won by the 2006 team. “Competition is really tough at practice.”

“Our team is student-led and student-coached,” said Stewart, who was a four-time MVP of the Mayflower League in Massachusetts and also was a four-year basketball standout. “That’s what makes it so great.”

Stewart said she felt she needed to take time out from school and tennis while visiting more than two dozen countries on five conti-nents.

“This is my first year on our club team,” she said. “What I love most is the balance between competition and fun. Tennis is definitely more fun at Western than it was for me in high school.

“Tennis was getting too serious and too competitive for me, but I found I missed it. What I really missed was the team aspect, because team play was what I really loved about high school basketball.”

Olbrich was a four-year letterman at Columbia River High, playing No. 1 singles his senior year and qualifying for the Class 3A State Tournament three times in doubles, including a third-place finish in 2006.

“I played a lot of USTA events with a state ranking in the top 100, and I had an offer from Cal Lutheran,” he said. “I’m an accounting and economics major, and I fell in love with the campus when I visited. I just love this place and our team, and Sam makes it all fun. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

Reni played No. 2 singles on two unbeaten squads for Class 4A Shoreline, qualifying for state in doubles. But she, too, said she’s hap-pier at Western than she would be elsewhere.

“We have a pretty competitive club team,” she said. “We could beat some of the Division III NCAA teams. More than anything else, I wanted to study abroad. I spent my whole sophomore year in South America, and I couldn’t have done that in regular college tennis.

“Our club team was definitely the best part of my freshman year at Western,” Reni said. “The dynamics of the team are the best part. It’s sort of like a big family. High school tennis was great, but this is definitely way more fun.”