2015 Season Preview: #36 MIT

Greetings, D3 tennis community! In my season previews, I will be covering twelve different schools spanning every region. Since every school I am covering is outside the top thirty, I will be doing something a little bit different in my previews. I’ll start by going through each team’s lineup, and then I will discuss what each team can do to get themselves in the (top 30) rankings. I am excited to get to do some more research and get to know my regional teams a little bit better over the course of this winter. To start off, I take you out to Cambridge, Massachusetts, home of the one and only MIT Engineers.

mit
MIT’s mascot is a beaver. Because beavers “engineer” dams. I love that!

Lineup Analysis:

Key Losses: Edwin Zhang (#2 doubles, #1 singes), Curtis Wu (#1 doubles, #5 singles)

Key Additions: Bryan Lilley, five other freshmen

Essentially, with the losses of Zhang and Wu, and no highly ranked incoming freshmen, I expect the lineup to shift up a couple of spots. Going off of this and the recent MIT Invite (which sounded like a cool little tournament, by the way, with Harvard, Bryant, and BU in attendance), here’s what I am thinking Coach Hagymas will engineer this spring (I thought about making as many engineer puns as possible over the course of this article, but wisely decided against it):

Singles:
#1 Singles: Kevin Wang (junior)

#2 Singles: Eugene Oh (senior)

#3 Singles: Kenny Gea (sophomore)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq3q03yeWe4

#4 Singles: Jeffrey Bu (junior)

#5 Singles: Dennis Garcia (junior)

#6 Singles: Kristopher Bronner (sophomore), Bryan Lilley (freshman), Jeffrey Sperling (senior), or any number of other people.

Doubles:

#1: Kenny Gea and Eugene Oh

#2: Kevin Wang and Jeffrey Bu

#3: Dennis Garcia and Robbie Shaw (sophomore)

Edwin Zhang was a terrific competitor who locked down that number 1 singles spot for the Engineers. After him, their lineup has always been shaky. Every person on this roster can hit a really clean ball, and at any instant can start ripping winners left and right. However, they have been out-toughed by numerous teams over the course of the last few years. Gea is one guy who hits a monster forehand who struggled last year because he would tire out in long matches. Similarly, Kevin Wang, who looks like he will now be playing 1, won all of his easy matches but lost tight three-setters to Sam King of Bowdoin and Smith-Dennis of Gustavus. With the exception of a couple of the doubles teams, look for this lineup to be relatively set in stone.

How can they get in the rankings:

Schedule: http://mitathletics.com/sports/m-tennis/2014-15/schedule

Because they play in the NEWMAC, MIT has always had a weaker schedule compared to the nearby NESCAC schools, due to having to play schools like Clark, Wheaton, and Babson. Despite this, they have always scheduled five or six matches against nationally ranked or nearly nationally ranked teams, giving themselves ample chances to prove themselves to the ranking committee. By their standards, they had an awful year last year, losing tight matches to the likes of Bowdoin, Bates, and Brandeis, and getting crushed by Gustavus Adolphus and Amherst. Their only almost good win was over RPI way back on October the 4th, over a year ago!

This year, with the losses in the lineup, MIT has scaled back the schedule, doing away with the tough fall matches and really only including four matches that I would classify as difficult. These are against Vassar, Trinity (CT), Bates, and Brandeis. Of these, only two are actually against top 30 schools, so MIT has really limited their chances to get in the rankings.

How are they going to beat either Trinity or Bates, might you ask? Well, they will do it with singles. Like I said, these fellas know how to crack a forehand, and against Bates, with Timmy Berg out of the lineup, I like these guys to win a few singles matches. However, they will need to get tougher, fitter, and want to win more badly than they may have in the past. Zhang’s toughness was never in question, and I think the top of the lineup will step up, but the bottom of the lineup will need to show up as well. Look for these guys to have some battle in singles matches against Vassar, Trin, Bates, and Deis.

What can keep them from the rankings:

MIT plays awful doubles. Awful. Awful. Against schools that know how to play doubles, MIT has not been able to compete. Against Bates last year, MIT lost 8-4, 8-2, and 8-2 in doubles. Against Brandeis, who struggled in doubles all season, they lost 8-4, 8-2, and 8-6. Except for two hours of forehand winners in doubles against Bowdoin mid-season (where they proceeded to lose five of the six singles matches, with three of them in three sets with not one of the third sets being closer than 6-2), they did not do well on the doubles court. Trinity knows how to play doubles. Bates knows how to play doubles. MIT most likely has to win one of those two matches to get in the rankings, and they are not going to do it with doubles.

Prediction:

MIT might be one of the more talented teams in the country, and they have been for a number of years. However, Zhang really was the glue mentally holding this team together. With no super-talented recruits coming in this year, I think the Engineers will sadly take another step back. I think they will lose to Bates, Trinity, and Brandeis, although I do think they are better than Vassar, and will take that match. One tricky match will be against their NEWMAC foes, Babson. Babson has been gunning for these guys just about every year, as MIT takes the conference title every single year. Babson did not lose any starters this past year, and I predict a tighter match between these two teams than ever before. MIT will squeak it out, 6-3, and will take the coveted(?) NEWMAC title. Their regional ranking will stay right where it is, since they are not playing any tough teams ranked below them (what happened to the battle of the Engineers versus RPI?!?!), but it will be a step back as they will lose by more to Bates and Brandeis than the year before.

This was fun! Look for another preview from myself to be coming out next week. It looks like I’ll be covering Swarthmore, which should be a good one. Apparently they are called the Garnet…what is a Garnet? A mineral? What kind of team is named after a mineral? Swarthmore, I guess! Anyway…thanks for reading!

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