2015 Season Preview: #11 Pomona-Pitzer Sage Hens

Pomona-Pitzer Colleges

Location: Claremont, CA

Coach: Steve Bickham

Preseason Ranking: 11

Intro: Since we have been receiving some pointed tweets from various members of the DIII tennis community (I’m looking at you @sagehentennis!), I will contribute to the blog this week with a preview of those very same Hens. Pomona-Pitzer had a fair amount of success last season, they recovered from a dip in the rankings the year before with the help of an influx of talented young freshman. The Hens just barely missed out on a top 10 National ranking and seem to be hungry for more. Now that their talented sophomore base has a season of experience, they will be a dangerous team for any opponent. Although they did just miss that top 10 preseason ranking, the Blog Preseason Power Rankings (an incredibly fair and unbiased measurement) has put them at the #9 spot. Now, I know that predictions become impossible once the balls start flying, but I think that PP has the guns to take themselves into the top 5 this year if they have solid leadership and a strong work ethic. Now to dive into the line-up analysis…

Key Losses: Chris “Baby Wipes” Weichert

Key Additions: Marco Mandic, Kalyan Chadalavada

1 Singles: Jake Yasgoor

Yasgoor will most likely be moving up from his position at #2 singles last year to the top spot for the Hens. In terms of last year’s play he had a VERY respectable record at that #2 spot with wins over some of the best two players in the country. In addition to the #2 spot he racked up a couple of solid #1 singles wins when he played the spot towards the end of the year. He earned a nod from the ITA and was named West Region Rookie of the Year. Yasgoor had a decent fall tournament with two wins over people who he was expected to beat, and then a loss to CMS’ Wood in the round of 16. He is going to be a solid top spot for the Hens and should be able to provide some consistent points.

2  Singles: Connor “the Chud” Hudson

By virtue of Weicherts departure, Hudson will probably move up another spot in the lineup to play #2 for PP. He has had an up and down singles career, with some surprising wins, and equally surprising losses. Despite this, if he is firing, he can play against anyone in DIII. Chuddy’s fall tournament was a bit of a mixed blessing, with a first round exist to Redland’s Jake Ly in singles and then subsequent doubles victory. With three seasons under his belt, he hopefully will have added some much needed day-to-day consistency to his game. As a senior, and probably the only senior who will be consistently playing in the lineup, his leadership will be an important part of the Hen’s success.

3 Singles: Graham Maassen

Similar to Hudson, Maassen will most likely begin the season up another spot in the lineup to play #3 for the Hens. He is one of their talented recruits from last year, who had a decent season at #4 for PP. That being said, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to see him hopped by Josh Kim as the season progresses. He had a fairly successful fall tournament with a round of 16 appearance and a close loss to the eventual champ Glen Hull.  Maassen has sort of a funky game that can be frustrating to play against, it will be interesting to see if it will hold up against the better #3 players in the country.

4 Singles: Josh Kim

Josh Kim came as a bit of a surprise last year, he didn’t play for the first portion of the season but when he finally did he came away with some fantastic results. His only losses at the 5 and 6 position were to CMS’ Morkovine and Pereverzin. He had a solid fall tournament with a close win over Josh Dancu in the first round and eventual loss to Mehall in the round of 16. He is a talented lefty with a good serve, which is basically every right hander’s nightmare, if his knees can hold up during the Spring season grind (he looked a little wobbly at ITA’s) then he will be a solid middle-lineup player.

5 Singles: Anthony Bello or Jonathan Kim

The first four spots or so for PP are fairly easy to pick out, but once we get to the 5 or 6 position that’s when predictions can be a bit dicey. The Hens have about 8 players who can play at these two positions and do well, often referred to by the blog as the “revolving door”. Because of that, the best I can do is narrow down the options for the 5 spot to either Jonathan Kim or Anthony Bello. Both are lefties, both are successful doubles players and both would be very solid 5 singles players. Kim was abroad in the fall so I am not sure how good he will be upon his return, and Bello had a mediocre Fall, he picked up a win in the main draw before going down to CMS’ Mehal in the second round and  got a few wins in the back draw before losing a close battle to Chad Stone of UCSC.

6 Singles: Anthony Bello, Jonathan Kim, Kevin Wei, Michael Chang, Marco Mandic, Kalyan Chadalavada, Thomas Low, Spencer Simonides….

I honestly won’t even try for this spot. It could be any of the above really. Expect to see a lot of changes at both 5 and 6 this year. If one person is actually able to secure either spot for the year they will be very tough.

Doubles:

Sage Hens doubles definitely looks strong this year, they have the Fall ITA winners ‘Chudalavada’, a quarter finals team of Yasgoor/Bello and a semifinal team of Maassen/Simonides. I expect Hudson/Chadalavada to stick together and start at 1 for the Spring with, mostly likely, Yasgoor/Bello at the #2 spot. The #3 spot could change with the return of Jonathan Kim, but just for the sake of consistency I will slot Maassen/Simonides there. Whichever way you spin it, one of the strengths of the Hens this year will be their doubles. Although their #1 spot will be nothing to scoff at, with their performance at both ITA Regionals and Nationals, the real strength will lie in the 2 and 3 position. Expect a lot of 2-1, 3-0 doubles leads for PP this year.

Schedule Analysis:

 http://www.pe.pomona.edu/sports/mten/2014-15/schedule

 The Sage Hens start their season with a double header of two Conference Matches against Occidental and Chapman in February (Bold move, Cotton). They should be fairly routine matches for the Hens before they take on #28 Bates and #20 Cal Lutheran. These two will be good tests of their toughness, although I don’t think that Bates or Cal Lu have the depth to compete against the Hens and PP will most likely take them with scores around 7-2. It looks like PP will be pulling an Amherst with their scheduling; they have 17 matches in the month of March with 6 double headers. I expect that with their large roster of solid players that they will most likely split their lineup for the majority of these double headers. Most of them are against one tough team and one relatively weaker team, so they shouldn’t run into too much trouble. That being said, there are two double headers that could be potentially disastrous, March 17th against Trinity (Conn.) in the morning and Amherst in the afternoon, and on the following day against Tufts in the morning and Skidmore in the afternoon. Fatigue could definitely become a factor in the Amherst match and in the two matches against top 30 opponents on the very next day.

The month of March is filled with important matches for the Hens that could bolster their National ranking and  a couple of potential ranking landmines. The first against Mary Washington, who will likely be slightly weaker this year, is one of those potential landmines. Mary Washington is a solid and fiery team who PP just barely beat last year, and will definitely be looking for revenge. But as I expect will be a trend for many of PP’s opponents this year, Mary Washington will be hard pressed to compete in both doubles and the lower lineup positions. I predict a 6-3 victory for the Hens. Next up they have Carnegie Mellon on the 8th, who PP is right next to in both the power rankings and the preseason National rankings. That is going to be a tough one to call, I think that PP has a very slight edge on their courts but it will probably be one of those gut wrenching 5-4 matches that could go either way. On the 11th PP has #16 Bowdoin at home, which is another landmine ranking-wise, it will be a must win for the Hens against a team looking for a win to secure an NCAA bid, I expect it to be close 6-3 for the Hens. In the Stag Hen, they have a first round matchup with Case Western, and potential matchups with a bunch of higher ranked teams. Just like Carnegie and PP, the rankings are very close but I am going to give the slight edge to Case Western who will edge the out the Hens 5-4. Next up is Amherst, followed by Middlebury, then Williams, and finally Chicago, all of which are going to be tough matches for both sides, all of which would be good wins for PP and fairly acceptable losses. Coach Bickham certainly put together quite the ranking studded schedule for his team.

In April the schedule gets a little lighter, with only 6 matches and then Ojai. But this section will probably be the most important for PP. Here they play the rest of their conference matches, most notably CMS and Redlands. Assuming they didn’t already play in the Stag Hen, this will be the first match-up of the year for the 6th Street teams. Like I said in the CMS preview, I expect this match will be no closer than 7-2 CMS, who are one of the few teams who can out-depth the Hens. The match against Redlands will probably be the most important match of the year, Redlands is going to be strong this year with lots of seniors and (hopefully) injury free. The match will be on PP’s courts which is an advantage for the Hens, but with the fire that both teams will be sure to bring on match day, they are going to fight tooth and nail for that #2 seed in the SCIAC tournament and potential favorable position in the NCAA tournament. Because of the importance of the match, I feel obligated to make a prediction. I’m going 6-3 (or 5-4) for PP mostly because I think they have a significant advantage in doubles and will pick up a 2-1 or 3-0 lead, then split the singles.

Regardless what happens in the month of March against all of those top 10 teams, I would bet on the Sage Hens to enter the SCIAC tournament as a 2 seed and clock a win over Redlands in the semi’s and then lose to CMS in the finals. This would leave them with a NCAA pool C bid to play someone (maybe Redlands for a 3rd time?). I will leave the NCAA tournament predictions until much later in the season, but I know that after having sustained that many beatings from the team across the street and assuming that PP can get past that first round, the Hens will squawk (ha!) at a chance to knock the Stags out of NCAAs.