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Out of the office
By Chris Strunk
Last Updated: May 17, 2018

Guts and determination

Pickle juice.

That's what Valley Center High School tennis player Hayden Brauer used to help him battle in a third-place match at the Class 5A state tournament May 12.

Brauer's body was cramping, so his parents got a jar of pickles and gave it to assistant coach Matt Klusener, who gave it to Brauer.

It must have helped.

The cheers of his teammates didn't hurt either.

Brauer looked like he was done in a war against a four-time state qualifier from St. James Academy, Isaac Howes, who was like a backstop. Pardon the mix of sports metaphors, but this kid was returning everything, wearing down an already tired Brauer.

Brauer later told me that it didn't initially matter how the third-place match ended because the Hornets had already secured a team title, the school's first in any sport since 1978 and the first ever for a boys team.

But when Howes took the first set from him, Brauer decided he didn't want to lose — or at the very least, he'd go down swinging.

Brauer got a service break in the opening game of the second set and held on to even the match, setting up what turned out to be an epic battle.

Brauer and Howes were the last ones playing. The doubles and singles finals ended early, so everyone gathered around the court to watch it unfold.

The atmosphere was electric.

The final set went back and forth. Neither player could hold serve — the sure sign of fatigue — as the contest went to 4-4.

Both players were spent, running on any drop of energy they could find from deep inside themselves and from their supporters.

By then, the other Hornets started to get vocal, cheering loudly with every point Brauer won.

Deep into one game, Howes hit a forehand from the baseline and the ball clipped the top of the net, bounced above the tape and fell back onto his side of the court.

Brauer stumbled toward the net, tapped it and thanked it. The crowd laughed, knowing that Brauer was on the wrong end of a similar shot not long before that. I turned toward Brauer's dad and said, “He's got game and personality?"

At 4-4, Brauer finally held a service game. Howes answered, but Brauer backed it up for a 6-5 lead.

Brauer led 30-15 on Howes' serve and hit a running forehand down the line to go up 40-15. Brauer closed the match on the next point.

I tell you all this to make a point. The match typified this Hornet team. None of the players ever gave up, and they wouldn't let each other give up either. It was remarkable, really.

Tennis is largely an individual sport, but not with this group. They made a point to show a unified front, right down to their shirts, hats and sandals. They were there for one another, especially when one was down. That type of camaraderie doesn't happen all the time.

“We talked about that every time we went out," head coach Dean Schulz told me. “You've got to gut it out. … It's the mindset of our team."

And it worked.

?Chris Strunk is publisher of The Ark Valley News. Reach him at 755-0821 or news@arkvalleynews.com, or find him on Facebook.




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