Last spring, Dartmouth College discovered Dartmouth tennis.
It was a well-made match-up. The fans lined the courts at Topliff and packed the bleachers inside Leverone. And the men's and women's teams kept piling on the victories ' neither team lost a match at home.
"We must have had a thousand people for Yale," men's coach Chuck Kinyon said.
The teams certainly didn't turn anyone away disappointed. The men won their first Eastern Intercollegiate Tennis Association title in the league's 87-year history and entered the fall season tied for the top spot in the Northeast Region rankings. The women racked up a 5-2 league record, including a win over Ancient Eight champ Princeton, and a second-place finish in the Ivy League.
This fall, the Big Green are trying to build on that momentum.
While the spring features almost exclusively dual matches ' when two teams face each other head to head ' the fall mixes in individual invitational tournaments along with dual matches.
But it still counts for the rankings. So far that's been good news for the men's and women's teams.
For the women, a surprise win in the second-flight doubles competition from Kiyoe Hashimoto '95 and Trudy Muller '96 highlighted the SUnity Tournament at Syracuse, N.Y.
Hashimoto and Muller, who had never played together prior to their win, plowed through a talent-laden field, dismissing teams from the region's two top-ranked teams, Virginia and Syracuse.
"They just played incredibly well together," Coach Chris Kerr said.
Muller, who has yet to lose a doubles match in her varsity career, also grabbed third place in the fourth-flight singles. Deb Healy '95 tore up the early rounds of the second-flight draw for another third-place finish.
But really, the most exciting part of this team ' a freshman class that fairly drips with talent ' has not seen any match play yet. Five '97's have broken the top nine of the Dartmouth line-up and make up what Coach Kerr calls one of the best recruiting classes she's had in her 21 years as head coach at Dartmouth.
"We're going to be a young team this year," Kerr said. "It will be exciting to watch them develop."
The biggest problem that Kinyon faces with the men's team is what to do with all the talent with which this year's team has been blessed.
He's having a tough time "finding a spot" for freshman Matt Fuller, a nationally-ranked junior player that won the D Division Cup at Yale last weekend and doesn't have a clue what to do with Kurt Bruggeman '95 once he returns from a back injury in the winter.
There are certainly worse problems to have.
With that packed line-up, Kinyon and crew will be gunning for an appearance in the Indoor Nationals. And at this point they're "only" a win at the Eastern Conference Athletic Conference Tournament away from that goal.
To achieve that, the men's team featured a balanced but dangerous line-up. Dan Coakley '94 had a fantastic summer, played as a qualifier at the U.S. Open and should fill either the first or second slot along with Chase Arnold '95 or Holden Spaht '96. Mike DeGuzman '94, who won the C Division draw at the Yale Invitation, will be pounding a lot of asphalt this fall, as will Randy White '94 and Jim Rich '96.
With that kind of line-up, people just might be discovering Dartmouth tennis on a national level.
