On Thursday, we had the opportunity to learn from another highly decorated tennis player in Sara Scott. After a four-year turn at the #1 singles position for UCLA, Sara went on to be ranked as high as #400 in the world during her professional tennis career. She is a self-identified “aggressive baseliner,” and so her court was all about weight-transfer and driving through groundstrokes. After saying goodbye to Sara, we enjoyed a meal from Backyard Bowls before heading out for some more match-play in the afternoon.

During the last two days of camp, there was a dramatic shift in the Owl Points week-long competition, with Team Fresh 2.0 dominating the abbreviated format match-play in the afternoon and then fielding the top two doubles teams in the Friday morning doubles tournament. Coming from down 13-8, Team Fresh 2.0 ended up winning the competition 26-22.

Individual honors for the camp went to Taylor Kleine and Luke Williams, both of whom were models of competitive drive and sportsmanship.

Taylor won a number of doubles matches with different partners throughout the week and helped make the difference for his team on the last two days, going undefeated in singles and doubles play, earning himself MVP honors. Luke was our Coaches’ Award recipient, in part because of his strong play throughout the week, but even more so because he was a go-getter. Luke was ready to be challenged and to compete every day and was a total class-act in victory or defeat.

Harrison Fell and Ben Newton put on a spirited hat competition all week, something that has become a sort of tradition at Laguna Blanca Summer Tennis Camp. Who will be top hat next year?

We ended the camp with our customary pizza party and then moved on to the team award. As part of the team competition, the winning team got to take a photo with their coach in the owl suit, and despite protests from the losing coach, Tristan and I lined up for one round of “butts up,” during which not a single camper dealt a glancing blow. Luckily for us, not even coach Ben hit his mark. Maybe next time, guys!

On behalf of my staff, I ‘d like to thank all the campers, celebrity coaches and celebrity players that participated in our second Laguna Blanca Summer Tennis Camp. We’ll see you next year!