Sep. 19—GOSHEN — To plan around and predict when your best player may set a new school record is a near-impossible task.
That’s why Bethany Christian head coach Matt Miller didn’t take it into account when setting up this year’s senior day before the season. After settling the date for Monday, Sept. 16, a day much earlier than his seniors may have liked, Miller did circle back to the history book.
“We picked it and once we figured out he was 10 away from the record, we were like, ‘Oh man, that puts a lot of pressure on because you basically have to go 10-1,” Miller said, speaking about senior Noah Schrock who was quickly approaching the school record for most career wins.
“Northridge’s No. 1 is good, Goshen’s No. 1 is good, Wawasee’s No. 1 is really good, Westview’s No. 1 is good,” Miller said about the talent Schrock would have to face in the early season. “So, he had four, at least four, really challenging matches he would have to only lose one of them to get it by senior night.”
Surrounded by family, close friends and church members, Schrock did that at home Monday night, winning 6-0, 6-0 against his Triton No. 1 singles opponent to reach 60 career wins, passing Bethany Christian 2017 graduate Byeong Min Lim, who was 59-14 in his career.
Of course, in typical fashion for the senior, Schrock’s court wasn’t the first to finish.
“They were long points,” Schrock said, describing how his match finished third, despite never dropping a game.
Schrock entered Thursday’s match against Jimtown 61-15 through four seasons with the Bruins. The player in his final season is returning following a 20-3 record last year, making a run to the individual sectional final — just the first singles player at Bethany to do so since Min Lim in 2015.
And just when the sports world needed another “GOAT” debate, Bethany Christian has now wound up with one of its own.
“Somebody was asking me, ‘Like if you had all your players, like if the best versions of our other top players in history played, would Noah beat them?’ and I was like ‘Yes,'” Miller said. “My assistant [Daniel Buschert] was like ‘I don’t know because this guy hits the ball so big,’ and I said, ‘but Noah would outlast them, Noah would have the mental strength to outlast them.'”
Schrock entered Thursday 11-1 on the year, losing in his first match of the season to Northridge sophomore Seth Lomas. On the way to breaking the record, he had to knock off Goshen senior Kyan Miller (7-6 (5), 4-6, 6-2), Westview sophomore Kaden Hostetler (6-2, 6-1) and Wawasee senior Joey Harper (2-6, 6-2, 11-9).
His match against Harper, the latest one between the two friends to go the distance, encapsulated exactly how far Schrock has grown during his career.
“Noah is awesome at taking a tactic in the middle of a match and doing it,” Miller said. “When he played Joey on Saturday, he lost the first set 6-2, but in that set we identified a weakness, like a way that Noah was winning points, and at the beginning it wasn’t our strategy, it just happened to be like ‘Hey, when you hit the ball in this area of the court, you’re winning those points, so can you do it on purpose?'”
A PATIENT MAN’S GAME
There’s something to be said about making the easy play. Rushing for three yards or opting for the open mid-range jumper don’t exactly catch the eye. It’s easy to give in to temptation, make the flashy play, aim for the home run. After all, you won’t see many singles up the first base line on SportsCenter’s Top 10.
But Schrock’s tennis senior quote, a piece of advice to younger tennis players, is right on target with his style of play.
“When in doubt, hit it in,” Schrock’s quote reads.
“That’s just how it’s been and it works,” the senior said. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It gets you there; that’s all you need. I’ll do whatever you have to do to win.”
And maybe the play style some might describe as boring isn’t as fun for the spectator. It may be deceiving as well to players and fans as well. Surely, the guy with the fastest serve looks more talented. That’s at least, maybe, how some have looked at it.
“It took him a while to get the belief of the team because of the way he plays,” Miller said. “His first two seasons here, there were a lot of people frustrated when they would lose to Noah and then that would be hard for them to [be] like ‘Oh, yeah, Noah’s our No. 2 or Noah’s our No. 1’ because they felt like they should be playing that position because Noah’s just slicing it and getting the ball back and they’re like ‘but I hit such big serves’ and stuff.
“I think it took a little bit for the other players on the team, especially when [Noah] was younger like [as a] freshman, sophomore, to be like ‘Oh, Noah is good, that is a skill’ and then turn around and support him. I think for a while there was this thought of ‘Well, if I just play well, I’ll beat Noah.'”
Schrock comes from a tennis family. Both his parents, Mandy Yoder and Jon Schrock, played collegiately at Goshen College. His sister, Anna, is a sophomore tennis player at Bethany, also playing at No. 1 singles. That makes it easier to understand when Schrock says “[I] always had a racket in my hand.”
Noah currently plans to attend Goshen College, but hasn’t been offered a spot on the tennis team. He said he’s open to it if they leave him a spot.
“I played 3-singles my first-ever match, then [they] put me at 2-doubles for Northridge and Goshen, got destroyed in both of those, went to 2-singles for the rest of my freshman year and then sophomore year the first half was 2-singles and the rest was 1-singles,” Noah said, mapping out his career at Bethany.
A cross country runner in middle school, Noah believes he first started playing tennis consistently and competitively in eighth grade. An issue with growth plates near his right knee was a hurdle he’s had to maneuver over.
“It forced me out of cross country,” Noah said. “Whenever we do conditioning, I can’t run for too long so it starts hurting, but it doesn’t do anything for tennis.”
Miller tried adding mileage to his players in the summer. A run to Goshen College and back was the assignment, but Noah’s knee issues kicked in and forced him to eventually walk back.
Interestingly enough, the injury seems to only show up during long-distance training. The lateral moves and short breaks during a tennis match have been beneficial.
The patient playing style has added another weapon through the years. After freshmen year mostly featured Noah just hitting slices back, Miller and the coaching staff began to work on his forehand.
“We worked so hard to just be like ‘all you need, is a power forehand’ because people would start coming to the net, and we said ‘If you could just get a power forehand, you can slice all you want and then when they come to the net, boom, you pass them and win the point. That’s what we worked on developing end of freshman year.”
Soon, Noah found the additional tool in his belt.
“My assistant coach Daniel at senior night said that he can remember sectional freshman year where Noah was like ‘Daniel, I hit topspin! I hit a topspin!'”
Miller argues that the playing style Noah uses is actually better than racing through a match. He cites that in his experience — Miller is in his 21st season at Bethany — that a lot of high school players are obsessed with power. When someone keeps simply returning the ball, it applies pressure and eventually forces them to make the move instead of matching the slow-rhythm long game.
“Only the very, very, very best players can beat you because only the very, very, very best players can go with that type of pressure doing it over and over and over again,” Miller said.
And if only one of the best players can get past Noah’s approach, he’ll still continue to find success because he’s also one of them. A fact now proven and backed up by the Bethany Christian all-time wins leaderboard.
Reach Matt Lucas at 574-533-2151, ext. 240325, or at matt.lucas@goshennews.com.
