The men's tennis team is taking turns writing the blog this season, and sophomore Michel Hu Kwo updates fans with the adventures in Texas and playing on outdoor courts for the first time this season. Be sure to bookmark portlandpilots.com/MTENblog and follow the Pilots all season long!
Previous Entries:
Blog Entry #1 – Geoff Hernandez (Feb. 17)
Blog Entry #2 – Jackson Martin (March 1)
So here I am, taking the chance to write our 3
rd team blog about our trip down to Texas, San Antonio. I have to say that there is tremendous amount of pressure writing this blog, since it will be the first publication from the international side of the team
[Editor’s note: Although Canadian Geoff Hernandez penned the first one, Hernandez’ first language is English]. You guys should know that any flaws in this blog will become a joke among the team and the person who wrote this will be made fun of for couple days….Haha!
I will start by a quick summary of this trip. We left on Thursday early in the morning and came back on Sunday close to midnight. We played UTPA; won 6:1 and UTSA; lost 1:6. Some of the highlights in this trip are definitely the “awesome” sunny weather (besides the sun burn we got from not putting on sun screen) and the team bonding moment in the 6 ft diameter tiny hot tub after our win against UTPA. Our dinner at the Saltgrass Steak house was also one of the “awesome” moments in this trip, satisfying our hunger and eagerness of just eating tons of meat, besides J dawg [Justin Guay] who had an attempt to order chicken strips in the kids menu.
One of the most memorable moments in this trip is during our first hit after we arrived SA. All of the guys were so eager to take off their shirts right after they entered the court, since we assumed that this was the only chance we can show off our body and get some tan going. The irony part of this story is that the only people in the tennis facility at that time were just ourselves (a bunch of dudes) and that every one of us was sun burnt after the hit, and the sky was pretty cloudy and the temperature was not THAT hot.
I have to say that this trip was pretty rough in terms of tennis because we had a very hard time adjusting the outdoor courts, but also rewarding because all of us fought hard to win. Comparing it to our experience of adjusting outdoor last year, we definitely showed a tremendous amount of improvement in terms of accepting the fact that complaining will not make a difference and that we need to just figure out ways to bypass the harsh conditions to win. Although we had our first lost against UTSA, the matches were very close and the UTSA players really needed to work hard to take the wins from us.
Overall, this trip was very rewarding despite our lost against UTSA. We fought hard on the court and gave our best to prevent the lost. We will keep working hard and hopefully bounce back for our three home matches coming up this weekend!
Sun Burnt Stefan trying to be cute……
Geoff: Loving his clutch order of T-bone with baked sweet potato)
(Alex: Enjoying the love of meat after giving up his vegetarian diet last semester….)
Team dinner pic at Saltgrass Steak House after our 6:1 win against UTPA
Highlights: check out the Brazilian swag from Daniel wearing his flip flops.
