Plans are just that: plans. And sometimes they change. When I first saw the Leafs would be visiting Utah on Monday, March 10th, I found a college basketball doubleheader on the Saturday prior with a 2:00 game at Utah State in Logan (about 90 minutes north of Salt Lake City) and an 8:00 game at BYU in Provo (about 45 minutes south of Salt Lake City). As the date neared, ticket prices for the latter game, which was against Utah, were nearly $200, far more than I was willing to pay. Thankfully, MLS scheduled a Real Salt Lake game at 7:30, which was a good second option. Then Utah State sold out, with tickets on the secondary market exceeding $50. I did not want to drive 90 minutes each way for what would be a bad game (Air Force were the visitors and lost 87-47) and looked around the Salt Lake City area, discovering the Utah Valley women had a game at 2:00 in Orem, about 30 minutes away. After arriving on Friday night, I checked the BYU composite schedule and found their Friday night baseball game had been postponed, so there would be a doubleheader starting at noon Saturday in Provo. Also on the composite schedule: BYU women's tennis at 10 a.m. Why not? Seeing four events in one day is not something you can do very often.
Sharpy had joined me on this trip and we drove to Provo from our hotel, arriving on campus just before 10 a.m. and parking in a lot midway between the tennis courts and the baseball stadium. As we walked to the tennis, we passed the student-athlete building, which has a cougar sculpture out front.
As it is March and still cold outside, the tennis match was played at the indoor courts, a large barn just behind the Smith Fieldhouse, where BYU would host volleyball later that evening. They even had a sign advertising the match, and if you look closely, you will see two very important words: free pizza. Yes, they had about 20 boxes of pizza delivered and fans could avail themselves of as much as they wanted. Given there were maybe 80 in attendance, everybody got at least two slices, an excellent breakfast.
There were even some trophies on display, from when the school was in the Mountain West, a conference they helped to create. Of course, they are now in the Big 12, one of many schools to have switched conferences over the past few years.
There are four courts here and five rows of seats stretching along one side. There are no other amenities here, but with free pizza, who needs them?
Four matches can take place simultaneously so you need the scoreboard to keep track of everything. Court 1 is closest to the seats and naturally you will pay attention to that more than the others.
Even Cosmo the Cougar made an appearance, gladhanding the fans as he made his way across the seating area. This was only my third NCAA tennis venue but it was by far the most impressive.
The 13th-ranked Texas Tech Red Raiders were visiting in a Big 12 matchup, with BYU ranked 73rd. This was a best-of-seven rubber with six singles matches each counting a point and the three doubles matches combining for the final point. The morning started with doubles, with Court 1 featuring fifth-ranked Avelina Sayfetdinova from Russia (on the left below) and Ukranian Mariia Hlahola (on the right). Yes, even in these fraught political times, Russia and Ukraine can work together. They defeated BYU's Bobo Huang (China) and Sue Yan Tan (Singapore) 6-4 (there is only one set in doubles and all deuces are sudden death points). When another Texas Tech duo won, the third match was abandoned since doubles only counts for one point.
After that, there were six singles matches and we stayed for the first set before heading over to the ballpark. In the end, Texas Tech took three singles matches, enough to clinch the rubber 4-2, with the final singles match also being abandoned. I found this to be quite an educational experience and it was fun to watch for 90 minutes, though the entire rubber took over three hours to finish.
Best,
Sean
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