Feb. 9, 2015
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The No. 22 Penn State men's tennis team participated in Spring Sports Media Day on Monday, held in Pegula Ice Arena. Head Coach Jeff Zinn, sophomore Alex Fennell (Bala Cynwyd, Pa.) and senior Michael Reilly (Raleigh, N.C.) spoke to the media as the Nittany Lions get set to head to ITA Men's Indoor Team National Championships this weekend in Chicago, Ill. Penn State is one of 16 teams participating in the tournament, held at the Midtown Athletic Club and hosted by the University of Illinois. See what the Nittany Lions had to say.
Q: What are thoughts on the early part of the schedule so far, qualifying for National Indoors, obviously a big opportunity for the program? What was the experience like that first weekend like? What are you expecting this weekend?
Zinn: To kickoff the season and win our first two rounds to qualify for the National Indoors, it is a big deal. I was telling the guys that this is one tournament that I've never taken a team to. It means a lot to me, because it's so difficult to make the national indoor championships, so I think we played well.
Reilly: Coming out in our first match at Kentucky, playing them, a Top 20 team, I didn't really know what to expect. We didn't have a warmup match before that. Being down 3-0 in that match and coming back to win 4-3 was a great experience. Then to come out the next day and beat South Florida like we did, we actually lost to them last year. That was great, we really started off the season right.
Fennell: That was a really fun experience. Coach Zinn did a great job in selecting Kentucky, he knew they would be a little weaker than their ranking might have shown. Everyone was firing on all cylinders; everyone was ready to go. As Reilly said, it was out first match, so we didn't know what to expect, but it was all positive in Kentucky.
Q: How can you use the experience of going to National Indoors to springboard you into the Big Ten season?
Zinn: These guys know it and I preach it all the time, we play for five solid months. You start in January and you go deep into May, with the NCAA Championships, it's a long, long season. You have to pace yourself. It's great to start off the year and make the National Indoors, but then you put a bull's eye on your back. If you don't take care of business against some of the lesser opponents, you have to be careful and that's what's happened so far. It's sort of been a roller coaster. We played well there, we didn't play well our second weekend. This past weekend, I thought we played really well, even in a loss. I think that's going to help us play well at the National Indoors. You look at our schedule, after this weekend, we will have played six teams in the Top 20. Basically, you're playing all of the good teams in the country. That's only going to help you, going into the Big Ten. Two other Big Ten teams did qualify for this tournament, Illinois and Ohio State, so we get to see two of the best in the Big Ten. I think we're right there with them as the third team, but Ohio State has dominated the Big Ten for the last 10 years, deservingly so. They're one of the highest ranked teams and they just won their 200th straight home match, which is the longest record in all sports, not just tennis, so that's a big deal. That's the kind of competition that we have to play against, that's why we have these guys next to me and the whole team. We understand the challenges. We know it's a five-month journey, so it's a long journey and you better be ready for it.
Reilly: I only play doubles, I don't play singles, so I'm not out there as much as the other guys are, but everyday in practice, we're trying to get better. As long as we focus on that and not who we're playing or what the rankings are, by Big Ten's and NCAA's, we'll be right where we should be.
Fennell: Last year, we had a lot of momentum going into the Big Ten season, we won a lot of matches, we had a really good record. Right now, we're at the hardest part of our schedule and as we play the teams on our schedule that are considered lesser teams, we can get that momentum going and I think our team will start to click more as we head into the Big Ten season.
Q: What is the state of the program? It's an exciting run for your team, how does it feel as a coach seeing this happen with a mixed roster in terms of age?
Zinn: I think we are going in the right direction, where I've always planned that we should go. I've recruited these guys next to me and the team that we have to make deep runs, not only in the Big Ten, but in the NCAA's. You have to build a team and a lot goes into that. You have to change the culture, which we did. These guys all believe in what the coaching staff is telling them, they believe they can compete with the best teams in the country, like we have been doing. We started it last year and that was the first part, build a base. Now we have to continue that this year, so we made another step, going to the National Indoors. Now we have to make that step to beat, on a consistent basis, a Top 10 team, a Top 20 team, Top 25 teams, we need to continue that. On the roster, we have seniors that come in and do their jobs. We have sophomores that come in and, as a freshman, Alex played so high as a freshman. Alex has been written up in a lot of the tennis journals. He had one of the best years, impact years that a freshman can have, in collegiate tennis last year. To play as high as he did last year, at No. 3 for us, was quite an accomplishment, quite an achievement. So he got a lot of notoriety this past year from tennis publications, how he impacted our team as a freshman. We're very proud of him and we hope to see bigger things from him, not only this year, but in his career.
Reilly: I transferred here last year from UNC Wilmington. At Wilmington, we were in the rankings and Penn State wasn't, before I got here. I didn't really know what to expect. We had everything here. The coaching staff, I knew was going to be great, we had every tool we needed, the weight room, and everything was given to us. All of the tools were there and last year, we finally took advantage of it. I think the culture we have is one that is going to be in the Top 10. Seeing us grow from where we were last year in the beginning of the year, unranked, to getting up to 16 last year and up to 16 this year, that just shows how our guys are coming into practice every day, working hard and listening to what the coaching staff and weight room guys are telling us. The sky's the limit for us, we have everything we need and if take advantage of it every day, we'll keep going. We'll be with the Ohio State's and Illinois' that are in the Big Ten right now.
Fennell: When I first got here, Coach Zinn and, at the time, Coach (Chris) Cagle, were saying, change the culture, this is the time now with seven new players. We kind of had a losing tradition before I got here. It was a pivotal year. We could either stay with the losing culture, mentality, I guess, or we could change the culture and become a winning mentality team. I think that year was huge for us. If we didn't have that breakout year, we could still have that same culture. The breakout year was huge and it was really fun to be a part of, to do something that people might not have thought we could do.
Q: Can you give your thoughts going into National Indoors?
Zinn: I think we'll mostly likely be the 16th seed out of 16. That will likely put us against Southern Cal in the first round. The defending national champions, they've won four of the last five national championships. I think that's going to be a very good test for us to see, okay now we're going to play the defending national champions, where are we? Where is our barometer at this time of the year? Are we improving? Can we play with the best in the country? We've proven it, maybe, with teams 10-20, now this is the best. We're going in there believing we can win every match, we never go into a match believing we can't win. But we also want to be competitive against everyone that we play, because tennis is a confidence sport. Confidence is just something that is attained every single match that we play. We need that confidence factor to keep growing as a team. Like Alex said, we had seven new players come in last year. We were young last year, we're not that young this year, we are veterans. We have to play like we're a veteran team.
Reilly: I actually got to play Southern Cal my freshman year, when I was not at Penn State. I think it was my third college match and I played against them in Southern Cal, they were No. 1, defending national champions. That was a good experience and I think I can help out the younger guys, telling them what that was like. We'll go out there expecting to win every match. It may not happen, but that's our goal and we'll see if we can do that and have a good tournament.
Fennell: When we play USC first round, we have nothing to lose. I think that frees us up a little bit. We really want to win, but if we don't, they're the top seed. I always play my best when I'm relaxed and not overthinking things and I think against USC, we're all going to play well, because we'll be relaxed and hyped up and it should be really fun. We're excited to be there.