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By completing a World TeamTennis regular-season dream by defeating the Newport Beach Breakers 23-16 Wednesday and finishing a fantastic 13-1, the Explorers provided an oasis in what’s been a vast desert when it comes to Kansas City professional sports of late.
Think about it. If our fair city were in a larger media market, it’d most likely be getting pounded on a daily basis for the recent states of the local pro teams. The Royals sit near the bottom of the American League Central. The Chiefs finished 4-12, lost their last nine games of 2007 and finished in a tie for last in the AFL West last season.
The Wizards have hovered around the bottom of Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference for the last couple of months. The Brigade finished its 2008 season 3-13 and last in its Arena Football League conference.
OK, the area can lay claim to Kansas Jayhawks basketball and Missouri Tigers and Jayhawks football.
But the Explorers put together a season to remember over these last three weeks. And Wednesday, Explorers Dusan Vemic and Kveta Peschke won tiebreakers to win their singles matches. Newport Beach rallied to win mixed doubles, but the Explorers’ men’s and women’s doubles teams won easily, polishing off a near-perfect season.
They’re scheduled to play the winner of tonight’s wild-card match between the Boston Lobsters and Sacramento Capitals at 9 Friday night.
If they win that, they’ll play the winner of Saturday’s semifinal between the New York Buzz and New York Sportimes at 3 p.m. Sunday. All of the playoffs take place in Sacramento, Calif.
And the Explorers, by virtue of their No. 1 seed, get to pick the order of sets throughout.
But Launius, even when pressed, wasn’t about to put on any air of superiority or gloat over his team’s success. The Explorers have known the bottom of their conference in the past themselves.
“We’re all part of this community, and it has been a dry spell,” he said. “I’m just glad we could get ourselves turned around.”
Launius said the Explorers’ presence in the WTT postseason, just the third for the franchise in its 16 seasons, hasn’t even sunken in yet.
“We still had two home matches left when everyone’s been talking about the playoffs,” Launius said. “When we get on that plane to Sacramento (today), it’ll all probably hit me then.
“I couldn’t be prouder of this team. There’s been fantastic chemistry. Everyone gets along and we’re having fun.”
It has also helped, of course, that the players have been playing some pretty darn good tennis. Heading into Wednesday’s regular-season finale, Rennae Stubbs ranked No. 1 in the league in women’s doubles and No. 2 in mixed doubles. She’s a strong candidate for the league’s female MVP.
The team’s other female, Peschke, was second in the league in both women’s doubles and women’s singles and is probably a shoo-in for female rookie of the year honors.
The Explorers’ men, Vemic and James Auckland, rank fourth and fifth respectively in men’s doubles. Throw in the 20-11 game record of Bob and Mike Bryan, and the Explorers as a team lead in that category as well.
Now that the Explorers are in the playoffs, don’t expect them to stop now.
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