2015 Women’s Season Preview: #10 Middlebury Panthers

Middlebury College

Quick Facts:

Location: Middlebury, VT
Coach: Mike Morgan, 9th year

2012 National/Regional Ranking: #6/#4
2013 National/Regional Ranking: #5/#3
2014 National/Regional Ranking: #10/#4
2015 Preseason National/Regional Ranking: #10/#4

Twitter handle: @MiddWTennis

Intro: Hello beautiful people!!!! I am very excited to do my very first team preview for the blog!! We will kick off the Northeast region with a review of the #10 Middlebury Panthers!! Middlebury has been consistently ranked in the #5-#10 range nationally for the past few years, and I am sure they are itching to get to the next level. Their main roadblock is the brutal NESCAC conference, in which they have not gotten out of the semifinals for the past bazillion years. Therefore they wind up either 3 or 4, behind Williams and Amherst, in the northeast region. Their big rivalry match is against Bowdoin in a fight for 3rd place in the NESCAC as well as the region.
Last season Middlebury finished 4th in the NESCAC Conference, losing to Amherst 3-5 in the semifinals, and then bowed out in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, losing 2-5 to Bowdoin. During the regular season they had two 4-5 losses to CMS and Bowdoin, with solid wins over MIT (7-2), Chicago (8-1), Trinity (7-2), Wesleyan (7-2), and Tufts (7-2). They graduated just one player (D. Paradies, #6 singles), but did not add any strong recruits to their team, so they have pretty much the same roster as last year.
Side note: They had a tremendous player in LokSze Leung 2 years ago. She would have been a senior this year but she transferred to D1 Northwestern University (looks like she is playing great there!) after winning the division 3 singles title in 2013.

Lineup Analysis: Let’s take a look at my projected lineups for Coach Morgan’s Panthers. Their #1 player Gerger was recovering from ankle surgery, so did not play in the ITAs or NEWITTs in the fall, but is expected to be back playing in the spring. They really need her to come back in the top spot to have a shot at taking back the #3 spot in the region as well as maybe an outside shot at taking down Williams or Amherst. It looks like they added 1 freshman in Gibbs, but looking at her fall results, I don’t think she will make an impact on the starting lineup just yet. Another thing to note is that it does look like Bondy is playing better this year, which is great for them. With Gerger out in the fall, their doubles got shifted a bit, but here is my best shot at a spring lineup. I also included their current UTRs, which is becoming a great tool in college tennis.

#1 Singles: Gerger (8.92), junior
Tough call between Gerger, who is recovering from surgery, and Fields, who is another national caliber player, but I’m going to go with the player who has proven herself a little bit more, and has a little more firepower in her game.

#2 Singles: Fields (9.11), sophomore
Fields had a great year last year, filling in more than capably at #1 when Gerger was out, and making the NCAA singles tournament. Gerger and Fields at the top make a great 1-2 punch and I think they can hang with the 1s and 2s of any team in the country.

#3 Singles: Bondy (7.85), sophomore
Last year Bondy had an up and down year. Looking at her positioning in the fall tournaments, it looks like Coach Morgan is putting her at the 3 spot above Orozco. If Bondy can keep her game under control, I think this is the right spot for her. She has a bit more firepower than Orozco, but Orozco has a more consistent and wily game.

#4 Singles: Orozco (8.36), sophomore
Orozco can be a rock at #4.

#5 Singles: Marchese (8.16), junior
It looks like Marchese was abroad for the fall, but I expect her to fill the 5 spot.

#6 Singles: Amos (7.39), junior/Paradies (6.71), senior/Shackelford (6.63), junior
After #5 things get a little messier and any of these 3 players can fill in at #6. Revolving door until someone claims it?

As I said, doubles is hard to predict since their top player Gerger was out all fall but here are my projections:

#1 Doubles: Gerger/Orozco
#2 Doubles: Bondy/Fields
#3 Doubles: Marchese/Amos

Keys to Success:
#1. A healthy Gerger and Fields at the top of the lineup
Middlebury is a decently deep team, but against the top teams, they need points at the top of the lineup – Gerger and Fields will need to be rock solid. If Gerger can get her 2 points and Fields can get her point in singles, they have a shot at pulling some upsets. Otherwise, they stay in NESCAC semifinal land.
#2. Must do better in Doubles!
Middlebury needs a little magic in their doubles. Doubles is where teams can start building an upset. Against Williams, Amherst (x2), and Bowdoin (x2) last year, Midd was always down 0-3 or 1-2 after doubles, and the matches that they lost in doubles were not close in score. They need to close that gap and at least make those matches closer and even get a couple more victories in those doubles matches if they want a chance at getting out of semifinal land and to the next level.

Pool C/Schedule Analysis:
With the projected restructuring of pools, the women’s NCAA Tournament, although not as severely affected as the men’s, may see some effect, it’s still not clear. With an addition of a conference to Pool A, the breakdown may look like this:
Pool A: 40
Pool B: 2
Pool C: 8
(It was 39, 2, 9 last year).

In order to see how Midd will do in the Pools, let’s look at their schedule: http://athletics.middlebury.edu/sports/wten/2014-15/schedule
3/15 #25 Brandeis
3/21 at #5 CMS
3/26 #12 Chicago
3/28 at #9 Pomona
4/4 at Hamilton
4/5 Conn
4/11 #2 Williams
4/18 at #6 Bowdoin
4/19 at #37 Bates
4/25 #3 Amherst
5/1-5/3 NESCACs at Midd

Midd should get pretty routine wins against the only unranked teams they play, Hamilton and Conn.  Both of those teams seem to be on an upward trend, but they are just not at the same level as Midd. #37 Bates is decent at the top of the lineup, but unfortunately for them, that’s where Midd is strong(er), so I also see a routine Midd win there. #25 Brandeis is a better version of #37 Bates (strong at the top, but just not enough depth to compete with Midd from #3 down.) On a good day Cooke from Brandeis might be able to grab her 2 points for a respectable 2-7 loss.
#5 CMS should be a good match for Midd, although it will be Midd’s first outdoor match. Last year Midd played Pomona as their first outdoor match and were handed a painful 1-8 loss, including a sweep in the doubles. CMS edged Midd 5-4 in their meeting last year.  If this were not Midd’s first outdoor match I might have said that Midd could pull off the upset but I’ll go with CMS 6-3.
#12 Chicago is going to be a tough tough match. It will be Chicago’s third outdoor match (they play #14 MIT on 3/23 and #9 Pomona on 3/25), while it will be Midd’s second outdoor match of their spring break trip. Last year Midd beat Chicago 8-1 also during their spring break trips, but Chicago looks to be stronger this year. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this match will go, as well as their match against #9 Pomona 2 days later!  For the Chicago match I’m going to go with Midd 6-3, and for the Pomona match I’m gonna go with the upset and say 5-4 for Midd.
The rest of the schedule is #2 Williams, #3 Amherst, #6 Bowdoin, and then they host the NESCAC Championships. As I said above, if they want to win at least one of these matches and/or get out of the semifinals in the NESCAC tournament, they are going to have to be solid at the top of the lineup and get some confidence and momentum going in their doubles.  I’ll hold off on the predictions for these matches, as it’s so late in the season that any number of things could happen!
In terms of Pool C implications, whether they get out of the NESCAC semifinals or not, Midd will most likely finish high enough (at least 6th in Pool C) in the rankings to make the NCAAs. Unless the schedule that they have online is incomplete, it doesn’t look like they are playing #16 Tufts in the NESCAC regular season, which is the one team that might be able to put a wrench in their schedule. Tufts is a much much improved team from last year, but they had a devastating 4-5 loss to #14 MIT, which makes their fate as well as the fates of anyone they beat extremely uncertain (btw I’m circling 3/19 #16 Tufts v #15 LaVerne on my calendar!!!) Actually, Tufts is playing Bowdoin, so if Tufts can pull an upset of Bowdoin (big task but not impossible) and Bowdoin beats Midd (always close), then Midd is in trouble.
All very exciting to speculate but I guess we’ll have to let the racquets do the talking!!!

Well, that’s it for now, I hope you enjoyed reading!!