WALLA WALLA, Wash. – Jeff Northam, the veteran men’s tennis coach at Whitman College, finds it hard not to smile as he scans the talent bursting through the seams of his spring roster.
"I’m excited about this season for a couple of reasons," Northam says. "We have great senior leadership, but we also have a very talented, very large first-year class. Those young kids are working hard, and their excitement is contagious. The mixture and the dynamics with this group are very good, which is something we may have been lacking the past few years. These guys have great sense of team spirit going, and that is something a coach always loves to see."
In terms of sheer talent, Northam says, this is "without question the best team I’ve had at Whitman. With this group, it’s unfortunate that we can only play six guys in singles in our matches."
Looking down his depth chart, Northam sees players in the No. 12 and No. 13 spots who, he says, could have "easily played at No. 5 or No. 6 singles for us in recent seasons. Based on the tournaments we played in the fall, Robert Rye, one of our juniors, would be No. 13 on our singles ladder, and he beat the No. 1 player at one of the other conference schools in one of those fall tournaments."
To give most of his athletes the chance to play on a regular basis, Northam has scheduled more than 30 dual matches this season, or about a dozen more than usual. In a number of cases, the Missionaries have two or three matches scheduled for the same day, sometimes in different cities. With recent graduate and player Brad Changstrom helping as an assistant coach, Northam will have two groups competing at different times.
That will be the case this weekend when Whitman, ranked No. 16 nationally in NCAA Div. III, opens its season on two fronts. Northam, Changstrom and the team’s top eight players will be in Tacoma this Friday through Sunday, playing Northwest Conference rivals Linfield, Pacific Lutheran and Puget Sound, in addition to one of the traditional NCAA Div. III national powerhouses, the University of California-Santa Cruz.
Meanwhile, back in Walla Walla, the remainder of the Missionary squad will do battle Saturday with Whitworth, another NWC foe, in a match that starts at noon in the Bratton Tennis Center. Anne Berry, who played at Whitman and now lives in Pendleton, Ore., will lend a hand with coaching Saturday’s match. Berry, who played at one time on the women’s professional tour, is a sports psychologist.
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| Nadeem Kassam (left) and Matt Solomon, winners of the ITA Northwest Regional doubles title, flank Whitman men's tennis coach Jeff Northam. |
Seniors Phalkun Mam, Steven Ly and Robbie Munday, who helped power Whitman to a NWC title as freshmen in 2004, will play at the top of Whitman’s first unit.
"There are younger guys are our team who can push Steven, Phalkun and Robbie, but it will be hard under most circumstances not to go with their experience at the top of our line-up," Northam says. "There’s just no substitute for the experience those three have accumulated the past three years. They have played in our top three spots since their freshman season, and they know what to expect."
Ly, who played No. 1 singles for much of his first three seasons, was named NWC Player of the Year last spring and was the only conference player to qualify for the NCAA Div. III national singles tournament.
Mam, who elevated his game last summer while playing in a number of tournaments, won last fall’s Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Northwest Regional singles title. He then placed fifth at the ITA national finals, earning a No. 5 NCAA Div. III national ranking. "Phalkun came into last semester playing very well," Northam says. "He’s a very talented player, and I think he’s starting to recognize that a little bit more."
Munday, who also earned Academic All-District honors last spring, played most of last season at No. 3 singles. He and Mam both reached the 100-victory plateau (singles, doubles) for their college careers in matches last March. Ly joined the 100-win club later in the season.
Mam and Munday begin their season with 114 victories each. Ly is close behind with 104. Tim Mullin, a 2002 graduate, is the all-time leader in victories with 149. Changstrom, this year’s assistant coach, racked up 122 wins before graduating in 2005.
"Both Robbie and Phalkun could break our all-time record for wins," Northam says. "It’s amazing what those two and Steven have accomplished, and for as much as they’ve done on the court, they’ve done just as much off the court. They’ve been true leaders and team players. I’ve been very fortunate to have had them in the program."
The top candidates to fill spots four through six in the singles line-up are returning sophomore Justin Hayashi and newcomers Matt Solomon (Los Gatos, Calif.), Christoph Fuchs (LaCenter, Wash.), Dan Wilson (Bellevue, Wash.), David Deming (Brush Prairie, Wash.),Jake Cappel (River Forest, Ill.) and Nadeem Kassam (Vancouver, B.C.).
Hayashi, who played much of last season at No. 6 singles, is "playing incredibly well right now," Northam says. "Justin had a successful season for us last spring as a freshman. He’s super quick on the court, and his game is complete. He has the strokes, and he’s a good doubles player."
Solomon and Kassam teamed up last fall to capture the doubles title at the ITA Northwest Regional. "Matt and Nadeem obviously played very well as a double team in the fall, winning the regional and then losing a tough play-in match for nationals," Northam says. "They lost a close match to a team that starts the spring season with a No. 2 national ranking."
Solomon, who played his high school tennis for St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Austin, Texas, also figures to play in the top six in singles. "Matt is still young and a bit erratic at times, but he can hit all the strokes," Northam says. "He’s the highest ranked player from the junior ranks that I’ve had here at Whitman, other than Steven. Matt is also a great guy who brings a lot of spirit to the team."
Kassam, one of three freshmen on the team who played at St. George’s School in Vancouver, was a top 50 player in the Canadian junior ranks who also qualified for the Canadian national tournament. "Nadeem has very good hands, and he has very good instincts at the net," Northam says. "His knees give him trouble at times, so he took the winter months off to get healthy. We’ll see how much tennis we get from him this spring. For sure, he’s going to impact the doubles line-up, but he’s also a good singles player. In a fall tournament, he beat the No. 3 player from one of the better conference schools, so he’s the real deal in singles."
Fuchs, a sophomore academically with freshman eligibility, came to Whitman after one year at NCAA Div. I University of Portland, where an injury scuttled his chances to play his way into the top eight. "In the junior ranks, Christoph was a top 10 player here in the Northwest. He’s a big, strong guy, maybe 6-foot-3. He volleys very well, and he could be the best doubles player on the team."
Wilson, the most physically imposing player on the team at 6-foot-5, has "one of the biggest serves I’ve seen at Whitman," Northam says. "He’s been clocked at about 130 m.p.h. He’s a big, strong guy who still has a few rough spots to his game. He plays well against the better players because he has such a big serve and a big forehand. He just hasn’t put his game all the way together yet. He’s one of the guys who will be fun to watch develop. He just needs to continue to work and improve."
Deming is "another of our young players with a tremendous upside," Northam says. "If he was playing No. 6 singles for us this season, we’d have a heck of a team. He’s a lefty grinder, super competitive – just a good, smart player. He hasn’t been exposed to top-level tennis as much as some of the other guys, but as a junior he was still ranked in the top 25 at times in the Pacific Northwest."
Cappel polished his skills in the state of Illinois, where he was ranked as high as 13th in the junior ranks. "Jake also was nationally ranked, and he played in some of the largest junior tournaments in the country," Northam says. "He has an all-around game and is very smooth. He has all the tools. On any given day, he can beat just about anyone."
Other freshmen in the competitive mix are two players from West Vancouver, B.C., Jasper Follows and Thomas Rolston, each of whom played with Kassam at St. George’s School.
"Jasper was ranked No. 10 or No. 11 in British Columbia as a junior," Northam says. "He has all the strokes. He’s very smooth and fluid on everything. He’s still lacks a little in terms of strength. If he was 20 pounds heavier at this point, he’d be playing in our top six."
"Thomas is very athletic and has a great one-handed backhand," Northam says. "I think he’s going to be one of those unsung guys who surprises a lot of people. It’s going to be fun watching his game develop over the next few years. He has a chance to blossom into a very good player."
Robert Rye, a junior, also has the talent to play with the first group, Northam says. "At the end of last season, Robert was playing as well in double as anyone on our team. He really impacted our doubles play in a big way."
The Missionary singles line-up will no doubt change from time to time as the season unfolds, Northam says. "Our top 12 or 13 guys are all very competitive. We can certainly juggle the line-up as the season goes along, depending on who is playing well. We can make adjustments as we go, and it could depend on who stays healthy."
Northam figures to have at least two of doubles teams set as the season starts.
"Steven and Phalkun might be the first Whitman team to play together as a doubles team in nearly every match for four years," Northam says. "Those two obviously have a nice chemistry, and they’ve beaten some of the better teams in the nation."
Solomon and Kassam, after winning the ITA regional doubles title last fall, seem to have forged a quick bond. "I’m also thinking about pairing Robbie and Christoph, but we have to see who clicks and who plays well together."
The scoring format for doubles is changing this season. Each of the three doubles matches will count for one team point, unlike past seasons when a squad received one team point by winning two (or three) of the doubles matches.
"In past years this change would have hurt us, but I think it’s going to only help us this season," Northam says. "We’re going to have three or four very strong doubles teams."
Filling out Whitman’s 16-man roster are senior Kenji Strait and sophomores Seth Zipple and Reid Bennett. "To get a chance to play, they know they’ll need to crack into the top 12 or 13, and they’re excited to have that opportunity," Northam says.
Pacific Lutheran, the defending NWC champion, lost its top two players to graduation and begins the spring season with a No. 19 nation ranking, three spots behind Whitman. "Whitman and PLU are legitimate top 20 teams at the national level, and Linfield always plays us well," Northam says. "They’ve come close to beating both of us in the past year or so. Puget Sound and Whitworth, based on last year, should be battling for the fourth and fifth spots in our conference."
Changstrom, a two-time Academic All-American at Whitman, recently completed an internship with the Centers of Disease Control. "Brad is in the process of applying to medical schools for next fall, so he was gracious enough to come back to campus and help us as an assistant coach."
Dave Holden, Whitman Sports Information
(509) 527-5902; holden@whitman.edu