Lobben-Mitchell Reprise Battle as Chaminade Serves Kellenberg 6-1 Loss

A crowd was slowly gathering around court number three at Friday afternoon. Every other match had already been finished and the Chaminade tennis team had assured itself a win against Kellenberg by a wide margin.

Steadily the sun sank from its mid-afternoon apex. Still Erik Lobben and Rich Mitchell kept lobbing volleys back and forth at each other, their respective skills on display for both sides for close to two hours, long after the former’s teammates had taken every other match – it was all on him now.

The two had last met in , going just as long with the same score – 6-4, 5-7, 14-12 – with Mitchell standing victorious once again.

“like this match it was really long,” said Lobben, who is now in his fourth year on the Chaminade varsity squad, now manning the first singles list this season after spending 2011 on the second tier.

“It’s exciting, I worked hard over the summer to try to get this spot. We still have a very good team below us,” he said, adding that “one thing I wanted to improve was definitely my all around game” as well as his all around and first serve.

Last year came as a bit of a shock to Chaminade, losing in the finals for no less.

“I guess we’re in a rebuilding phase,” Lobben said, noting the loss of several seniors the past 2 years. “We get in a lot of young players.”

Ones that the crowd will have their eyes on.