It’s me again! I just finished writing my CMS article (hope y’all enjoyed!) but I am not nearly done yet for the rest of the season. I would like to advise you guys to continue checking back to the blog for the next week or so – we will have regional recaps for all the regions as well as our “Superlatives” article where we name a ton of players to the Blog promised land. That’s right, we’re naming MVPs, Most Improved, etc, etc. We will also have the “Blog All-Team Selections” that brought a lot of debate last year. Lastly, we may do a fun thing that was birthed on twitter (shoutout to Regional for always spelling “berth” wrong), which was the DIII Tennis Fantasy Draft. We may do something like this to recap the year in general, so a lot of fun stuff coming up!
Anyways, I wanted to take you guys through the 10 Burning Questions that I had in the very beginning of the year, and whether or not those questions were answered and/or were relevant to this season. It’s almost like checking my own general predictions as the year went on. So, this will be pretty straightforward. Ten questions, ten answers with analysis, and then as usual, I’m out. Also as usual, D3NE will not respond to any texts over weekends, holidays, and during the weekday. He will, however, sign on twitter and sometimes tweet out wrong information and laugh about it when I text him about his errors. That’s happened before.
1) Is this FINALLY the year for CMS?
Well, obviously your answer is YES! It feels good to have your first question be not only very easy but also be on point. CMS finally got the monkey off their back this year and they are now rewarded with their first championship since 1981. Yeah, it’s been that long. If you want to read more about their journey, I would advise you click the article right below this on the homepage for more information! Congrats, CMS!
2) Who will step up this year in the Northeast?
Wow! I can’t believe that this was the next question. I got really lucky this year in terms of these general predictions, considering the answer to this is the runner up, Middlebury. The Panthers answered my doubts in the beginning of the season that a NE team couldn’t step up this year with the many graduations. They took advantage of the general parity of the teams from #2-#14 and were able to win the dogfight to get to the Finals. I was thoroughly impressed by Coach Hansen’s job this year and I am finally starting to turn and think that Hansen can do even bigger things with this Middlebury team. I have had my doubts, but the Panthers have improved their standing almost every year since Coach Hansen has been there. Coincidence? I doubt it. Watch out next year for Middlebury, because who knows, the field is wide open…
3) Where will the Emory hype take us this year?
Wow, well this is my first disappointment. Emory has had a rough couple of years by their standards, as they have failed to make the Final 4 in the last three years. They are currently losing some huge seniors in Ruderman, Halpern, and Wagner, so they are certainly on the watch list for next year. I had thought the senior power would be able to propel the Eagles into the Final 4 this year, but they came one match short in a bizarre match against Wash U in the Elite 8. While this was a tough result, we normally see that the Eagles come up big, especially against their long-time rival. So, to answer this question, it looks like the Emory hype was again overhyped this year. Thankfully, they got a UAA title, but we shall see what happens next year. At least the Eagles get to keep the dude Rafe Mosetick.
4) Trinity TX can’t beat this past season, right?
Trinity TX was one of the big stories of last season as they got to the Final 4 the year before, despite being a team not known for their talent. This year, we were wondering if they had capped out, or if they could take ANOTHER step forward and make the finals. They started off the year with a bang, winning Indoors Nationals. The Indoors win was their first ever Indoors win in their program history, so things were looking up for the Tigers. Not to mention, they did it all without the injured Paxton Deuel, who had played #1 singles for them last year. That’s when the season went a little downhill, as they took losses to Carnegie Mellon, Pomona, and Wash U as they finished out a brutal Spring Break trip. They made their usual Elite 8 by taking out Mary Washington in the regional, setting up a rematch of the third place match with Middlebury that happened the year before. In a very un-Tiger-like fashion, they got swept in doubles and were unable to comeback from such a large deficit. The answer to this question is a mixed bag, because Indoors is a huge win, but we all get judged by the things we do at NCAAs. Chalk this one up to a mostly “no.”
5) Who will this year’s breakthrough team be?
I cited a few different breakthrough teams in this question and was wondering which team was going to be the team this year. Well, we all know the stories of my two breakthrough teams this year. That would be Pomona and of course, Chicago. Pomona dominated the regular season with wins over a ton of top 20 teams, as D3West so graciously pointed out in his West Region Recap. They were definitely the surprise team of the regular season and were eventually ousted by eventual champion CMS in another example of the Region of Death issue that appears every year. Moving onto Chicago, this was a team that had to get a big win to get that whole “Chicago thing” off their backs. Well, they did that in a big way at NCAAs by taking out the #2 overall seed, Amherst, in the Elite 8. They then pushed Middlebury despite having an extremely tough battle the day before. Both these teams are poised to have solid seasons next year, and who knows, maybe Chicago can fight for a potential national championship.
One more surprise that needs to be mentioned is of course the Stevens Ducks, who have risen out of the ashes of the top 40 to an almost top 20 team. The Ducks are a young team under the now Coach of the Year Steve Gachko, and they could be in for some bigger things next year depending on their development.Here’s to the #HeinrichManuever and the rest of the Ducks to a great year.
6) What will be the next chapter in the Case/CMU rivalry?
This seems like a weird question to talk about considering neither of these teams made the postseason, but both of these teams finished in the top 12, so it’s not like they don’t deserve the recognition. However, it looks like this question was answered with a resounding KO in CMU’s favor this year, as they took out the Spartans 7-2 in a home court win. Case had previously knocked CMU out of the tournament or postseason contention for the previous three years, and it looks like this year brought CMU some good fortune as they easily took out the Spartans. Let’s see what next year brings!
7) How will teams that took a step back last year make a comeback?
I particularly noted three teams in this question – Kenyon, Bowdoin, and California Lutheran. Two of these teams were able to make the postseason in an extremely tough field, but none were able to make it back to the Elite 8. Kenyon, however, answered a lot of critics that did not believe the Lords could have a successful season. With wins over Chicago, Case, CMU x2, and others, Kenyon made a statement that they are still one of the most workmanlike teams in DIII with an underrated coach in Coach Thielke. Bowdoin also surged back into the top 10 with big wins on their Spring Break and featured a pretty deadly singles lineup. Unfortunately, CLU took another step back and it looks like the Kingsmen are going in the wrong direction, for now.
8) Will the “Black Hole” reappear once again?
The funny thing about the “Black Hole” is that it looks to be the norm at this point. All the teams below 16 or so have the ability to beat each other on any given day. They play each other so much that there are bound to be directs and indirects everywhere, which is crazy. This has become the norm for DIII tennis. However, there was a different type of Black Hole that appeared this year, really from #2-#14. Think about it. Every single one of those teams had some weird results against another opponent. Whether it be Amherst losing to Williams, Trinity TX losing to CMU, Middlebury losing 9-0 to Amherst, Pomona defeating Chicago, or anything else, there were tons of matches that made our heads turn. Parity is becoming the norm for DIII, and that results in the so-called “Black Holes” that we are talking about.
9) What about Johns Hopkins?
This was more of a question just to single out the Jays, and boy, did they deserve it. Hop started out the year well, notching a 4th place finish at Indoors, and relatively cruising through their other matches. They then went into a sort of late-season tailspin, losing badly to NCW and CMU, while narrowly beating Mary Washington as well. Something seemed off for this senior laden team at the end of the year, until the regional against Kenyon, at Kenyon. Hopkins turned it into another gear (or three) and took out the Lords in what was a shocking win in Gambier, Ohio. Hopkins was the definition of a roller coaster this year and although they didn’t meet my regular season expectations, they gave CMS a tough challenge in the Elite 8 and had a good postseason.
10) Which one of you will underestimate Wash U?
Once again, it was basically all of us. Wash U was a team that I felt underachieved most of the year and they took another UAA loss at the hands of Emory despite having multiple match points. In the NCAA tournament, they survived a close battle against Whitman. At that point, most of the people had Emory to beat them in their brackets, other than D3Regional. Well, Wash U once again surprised us by taking out their rival on the right day, reaching another Final 4. Wash U then took out Chicago in the 3rd place match, setting them up for another top 3 ranking. We should expect this every year out of the Bears, but they always seem to lull us to sleep before surprising us. (Did I get anything wrong in this paragraph, UAA?)
Well, well, well. It looks like another 10 questions have been answered in DIII tennis and I personally think this year was another great one. There was drama, upsets, a favorite, and eventually, a lot of first-time national champions. These 10 questions were definitely “top-heavy,” but such is the state of DIII tennis and this blog. Use this as your “season recap,” if you will. Also, be sure to look out for our other Regional Wrap-Ups later this week, a Superlatives article, and potentially a Fantasy Draft article! As always, ASouth, OUT.
lookin good ASouth