Over the past number of weeks, Gustavus Men’s and Women’s Tennis have both been hard at work during their fall season. This rather brief fall season only lasted about one month. Each team, however, is very pleased with how their short seasons went.

On the Men’s side of the court, the Gusties had two competitions this fall. Their first competition took place in Iowa at Drake University in mid-September.

Their second, and final competition was the men’s portion of the ITA Midwest Regional, taking place here at Gustavus just last weekend. At both of these competitions, Junior Mohanad Al-Houni played stellar tennis, taking second at the Drake Fall Invite, and winning the ITA Midwest Regional singles title.

The finals of the ITA tournament were especially unique, as Al-Houni faced off against a player he is extremely familiar with: his own teammate and doubles partner, Sophomore Patrick Whaling.

“Playing a teammate in this tournament is something that could get nerve racking. I am very proud of Patrick in the process that he is taking and willing to put in the work that put him to where he is at right now. I am really looking forward to see his young experience develop in the future after a great run in the ITA’s,” Al-Houni said.

With his first place finish, Al-Houni has earned a trip to Arizona next week to compete in the ITA National Division III Singles Championships.

“Winning the ITA tournament is something really special to me and it’s something I am really grateful for. I am really grateful for my teammates for always pushing me and each other to get better, which allowed me to put trust in them,” Al-Houni said.

Even though having two finalists was an extremely impressive task, Men’s Head Coach Tommy Valentini was also happy with the overall depth that his team displayed last weekend.

“It was certainly an honor to have the two singles finalists, but I was most impressed by the balance and depth we showed throughout the event in singles and doubles. I was pleased with how our guys embraced the unique challenges of the event, and we grew a lot as individual competitors and as a team as a result of the excellent competition,” Valentini said.

For the women, the only competition of the fall took place here at Gustavus in late September, when the team hosted the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Midwest Regional tournament.

“We had a terrific fall season this year. For the first time ever, we brought in the girls a week prior to school. This allowed us to jump-start our fall season with two-a-days and a lot of team bonding. We had a solid four weeks of preparation for our only competition for the fall, which is our ITA tournament,” Women’s Assistant Coach, Heidi Carlson, said.

Although the women did not come out with any first place finishers at the tournament, the team fared extremely well in both singles and doubles play.

“We had four Gusties in the round of 16 in singles, along with three doubles teams also in the round of 16. Our top doubles team of Michaela Schulz and Ally Baker lost a tough one in the semis, 9-7, to the eventual champions from UW-Whitewater,” Carlson said.

Now that the competition of the fall season has concluded for both the Men’s and Women’s teams, the Gusties now have some time off before taking the court again in the spring. Although the teams may have an offseason period, you can bet that all of the Gustavus tennis players will be busy putting in work all winter to prepare for the spring season.

Perhaps in the spring Whaling will get a chance to dethrone his doubles partner.