What’s your favorite Lifesaver?

My sons are taking their PSSA’s this week.  The Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) is a standards-based assessment used to measure a student’s attainment of the academic standards.  The kids are allowed to bring in sugar free candy for the exams and it sparked a

fond memory I have of Butter Rum Lifesavers.

Tennis wise we avenged our defeat to the Funsters on Friday night, March 9th.  The Funsters got us earlier in the season and this time around we knew what to expect.  Despite their .500 record, they are group of solid tennis enthusiasts who like to have fun on court.  It’s a refreshing attitude.

At #1 doubles our team of Dehlia Towlers and Joel Irwin took care of business winning in straight sets.  Welcome Dehlia – it’s nice to have you aboard.  Joel Irwin continued to dominate and his athleticism, big serve and aggressive play makes him a great option for any captain.

At #2 dubs, Ed Daou and (fill in name here) continued to dominate winning 3&1 in a patient match.  Ed is 6-0 this year and he’s played in our most difficult matches.  He’s had 3 partners all of whom are sensational options to have; Darlene Hildebrand, Sue McNabb and Mary Brewster.  Due to injury and availability issues, Mary has filled in for the last 3 matches with Ed and it’s a pleasure to watch these two perform.

At #3 dubs, I laced them up with Doreen Fulmer and faced Jim Ferringo and Karen MacPhail who were 6-2 on the season entering our match.  Doreen was supposed to play with Canh Ho but due to a commitment for teaching tennis he was unable to fit the match into his schedule.  First, I want to extend a sincere thank you to John Ferringo for working with us to accommodate Canh’s schedule.  I have found it more and more uncommon for opposing captains to work with you to help in these situations.  John bent over backwards, did lots of extra work and tried to help us.  In the end, I still had to fill in but thank you John – what a nice thing to do.

The funny thing here is that Doreen showed up expecting to play with Canh.  We started slow and by the time she got over her chagrin from the change in her partner, we were down 1-4 in the first set 🙂  Doreen told me between games that the last time she was down 1-4 she came back and won 7-5, 6-3.  This seemed to be wishful thinking and I was getting a little frustrated.  We did come back to take the first set 7-6, we lost the 2^nd set 3-6 but we finally got off to a better start in 3^rd set going up 4-1.  I held twice as I started serving in the set and then Jim was down Love-30, then 15-40 and in total we had 3 chances to go up 5-1.  We did not.  Jim held.  They won the next two games and they had a game point at 40-30 to level the set score at 4-4.  Fortunately, we were able to break and all I had to do was serve it out.  However, right before this match I practiced in our weekly practice from 6pm to 7:30pm.  The match started at 7:30pm and the clock on wall said 10pm.  I had been on court for 4 hours and my calf was cramping for the first time ever.  I was able to hold and we won the set 6-3 and the team match 3-0.  Instead of heading out with friends, I went home to sleep.

Up next we face Springton K-O on 3/24 and then we finish up with UMLY 2 on 3/31.  The Pirates also kept pace winning their match last weekend and they face UMLY & UMLY 2 in their last two matches.  If we finish 2^nd we play in against Kinetix (8-2) and Bucks County (9-3) on April 14^th.

I’ve found a few more versions of my favorite Lifesaver from John Coltrane – looks yummy!  And speaking of Jazz and Blues legends, I found a quote from Muddy Waters that I can apply to tennis, “I wanted to definitely be a

musician/tennis player or a good preacher or a heck of a baseball player. I couldn’t play ball too good – I hurt my finger, and I stopped that. I couldn’t preach, and well, all I had left was getting into the music/tennis thing.”