Happy Fall, boys and girls! Most of the other writers have looked at their respective teams (looks like D3RegionalNEC has approximately 137), and now it’s my turn. I am planning on using the ice-dragon that is over-blurb to take down my #WallOfText, but no promises. My #WallOfTexts have stood for thousands of years. I’ve put a call out on Twitter for questions, and have included the best ones below. If you have anything else you would like answered, feel free to comment, tweet @D3Northeast, or email D3Northeast@gmail.com and I will include your question in next week’s article. A reminder, the eight teams I mainly cover are: Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Middlebury, MIT, Tufts, Wesleyan, and Williams. I’m happy to answer some questions about other teams, but if you are looking for more in-depth coverage of Skidmore, Brandeis, Colby, or other NE schools, please speak with either D3Regional or D3RegionalNEC.
WHO IS THE FAVORITE IN THE NE?
Middlebury. Sure, Bowdoin is coming off back-to-back Final Four appearances, and Wesleyan is coming off the program’s first NCAA Quarterfinal, but the Panthers appear to be the team to beat not only in the region, but also in the country. Just think about this projected lineup. Cubs (best player in the country last year), Farrell (best player in the country two years ago), DeQuant (one of the better #2’s in the country last year), Schlanger (one of the better #4’s in the country), Xiao (5-star/top-40 recruit), Van der Geest (senior with plenty of NCAA experience and a UTR around 12). That’s pretty nasty. Of course, there are still question marks, which we will take a look at below.
CAN ANYBODY BEAT MIDDLEBURY?
How wont Middlebury dominate? Speculate on realistic scenario of them being beaten by NESCAC or any other team
— helix (@Quince7115) September 16, 2017
This is becoming a fairly common question amongst NE fans. While you’d be a fool not to consider Middlebury a championship favorite, there is no such thing as a lock in D3 tennis. Just think about the other teams who should also consider themselves title contenders. Bowdoin, unlike Middlebury, has players on the team who have won a team national championship. Wesleyan beat Middlebury during last year’s regular season, and seem to get better every single year. Williams has reloaded, and is coming off a strong finish to 2017. Each of those teams have strengths where they can push Middlebury. While no team in the country will be favored against the Panthers at the top spots, all of those aforementioned teams should be deep this year, and all of them play solid doubles as well.
Outside of the NESCAC, we can look at the usual suspects. CMS will have Parodi at the top, and while they graduated a bunch of seniors, no team should be excited about playing CMS @ CMS at NCAAs. We know all about Chicago’s talent, and they should be better this year with a healthy David Liu and the development of younger guys like Kerrigan and Kumar. And lets not forget about our defending champs and D3AS’ pride and joy. True, losing Manji and Goodman will hurt Emory, but any team that has gone the distance before should be considered more than dangerous. All three of these teams are deep (especially Chicago), and should be able to pose a real challenge to Middlebury if they can take a doubles lead.
are you still depressed that the NESCAC didn't win in 2017
— d3AtlanticSouth (@d3AtlanticSouth) September 20, 2017
By far the worst part about Emory winning last year, is that it makes D3AS’ big mouth even larger. Expect him to sound off early and often this year. At least his meme game is strong.
WHO ARE THE SENIORS IN THE REGION?
Amherst: Ben Birkenfeld. Hasn’t seen a ton of court time, but being the lone senior on the roster should mean that Ben is a major leader of the Mammoths in 2018.
Bates: Ben Rosen/Adam Schwartz/Josh Leiner/Andrew Berghuis. We know what Rosen can do, but it might be up to other seniors like Schwartz and Leiner to see how far Bates can go this year.
Bowdoin: Luke Tercek/Kyle Wolfe/Gil Roddy. Big senior class for the Polar Bears, as this is the last hurrah for three CRUCIAL two-way starters. They’ll need to be more than solid if they want to bring a second title back to Brunswick.
Middlebury: William DeQuant/Kyle Schlanger/Timo Van der Geest. Another vital class, even though none of these guys will play at the top of Midd’s lineup. Three seniors who have come so close to the summit of D3 tennis, only to see the title slip through their fingers. It’s now or never.
MIT: Bryan Lilley/Omar Gonzalez. Lilley has been a doubles specialist, but it will be up to these seniors to keep the younger guys hungry and motivated (NOTE: turns out Lilley graduated early! Props to Edwin Zhang).
Tufts: Zain Ali/Ben Battle/Danny Coran/Rohan Gupte/Jack Friend. It seems like Tufts has a big senior class every year. Battle gets another shot, which should make anybody who’s ever gone through an injury feel good. Ali, Coran, and Gupte are all important starters, which means this is another make or break year for the Jumbos.
Wesleyan: Steven Chen/Tiago Eusebio/Cam Daniels. After a couple years of minor graduations, this year the Cards are projected to drop three singles starters after 2018. While they’ve been constantly reloading, Coach Fried likely sees this year as his best team yet.
Williams: Brian Grodecki/Sachin Raghavan/Jordan Sadowsky/Reehan Vij. The Ephs only lost one starter last year in Shastri, but this year will be different. A heavy crop of important seniors will be departing Williamstown in May, putting more urgency on a team that made the national quarterfinals last year.
Who is one freshman to watch on each of your teams?
Amherst: Ethan Hillis, Colorado (4-star, UTR=12.47). Coach Doebler continues to bring in talent at an extremely high rate. Sean Wei is a 5-star from NY with a VERY high UTR of 12.70, but when your mother is Eileen Hillis, you get first billing on The Blog. We’ve been excited for young Ethan to hit the D3 landscape ever since his mom won our initial Indoors DraftKings Extravaganza two years ago.
Bates: Robert Kennedy, New York (3-star, UTR=10.98). According to TRN Bates only has one incoming freshman, and the Bobcats haven’t updated their website yet, so say hello to Bobby Kennedy. I hope you will think of his name using the JFK voice from Clone High.
Bowdoin: Larry Zhao, Canada (UTR=11.68). Bowdoin has a deep class coming in, without a true front-runner for playing time. It will be tough for any Polar Bear to crack a starting lineup that didn’t graduate any seniors, but keep an eye on Larry Zhao (UTR 11.68). The Canadian should have had plenty of indoor tennis experience.
Middlebury: Nate Razor, Texas (4-star, UTR=12.00). Midd has a top-5 class, loaded with talent. I already touched on 5-star Andre Xiao, but Eazor actually has a higher UTR than Xiao as of now (12.00 vs 11.76).
MIT: Charles Deng, Arizona (5-star, UTR=12.36). Yet another 5-star recruit, it will be fascinating to see how both Deng and Zhao (4-star recruit from NJ) fit in with this young/talented team.
Tufts: Owen Bartok, New Jersey (2-star, UTR=11.18). Bartok isn’t Tufts’ highest rated recruit on TRN, but he does have the highest UTR of any incoming Jumbo freshman.
Wesleyan: Andre Finkelman, Oregon (4-star, UTR=12.71). Wesleyan’s highest rated recruit on both TRN and UTR, Finkelman will look to replace a hole left by the graduation of Michael Liu.
Williams: Austin Barr, Ohio (5-star, UTR=12.62). Ephs came up big landing Lil’ Barr. 5-star recruit from a 5-star family. I can’t wait for him to play Tyler at some point down the line.
Who is a player you haven’t mentioned yet, to keep an eye on from each school?
Amherst: Zach Bessette. Bessette has made it through some trials and tribulation at Amherst, and the former NESCAC rookie of the year could be in for a big year.
Bates: Josh Quijano. Q as the Bates Twitter refers to him, will be called upon to do a lot in the middle of a lineup that doesn’t have a ton of experience.
Bowdoin: Grant Urken. Urk came on STRONG at the end of 2017, making a nice run at NCAAs. If he continues his upward trajectory, he may well pass Tercek for the top spot.
Middlebury: Noah Farrell. Cmon guys. I’ve seen the Night King, I LOOKED INTO HIS EYES! The best player in DIII is back from a year-long hiatus (dude marches for a long time). So many questions. If he’s playing at a high level, the Panthers are the favorites.
MIT: Tyler Barr. It’s surprising that I haven’t touched on Big Barr (he’s iron tough) yet, but he’ll be looking to lead MIT from the top spot in 2018.
Tufts: Zach Schaff. Schaff had some impressive results last year as a freshman, and if he’s made a sophomore jump, Tufts will be formidable from top to bottom of an experienced lineup.
Wesleyan: Princeton Carter. The Little Prince, the Half-Blood Prince, THE HURRICANE, Carter has a ton of outstanding nicknames, but has he made the leap from strong bottom of the lineup player, to strong middle of the lineup player? If so, Wesleyan should be even more dangerous than last year.
Williams: Deepak Indrakanti. Deepak had a VERY strong freshman year, and was solid as a sophomore. This year, in order for Williams to improve upon their quarterfinal appearance, they will need another big year from Indrakanti in the middle/top half of the lineup.
Who are the favorites for Individuals?
Lubomir Cuba (Midd): Defending national champion, this one seems like a no-brainer. It’s not out of the question that he ends up playing #2 on his own team…
Noah Farrell (Midd): The return!! He was the best player in the country two years ago, but what will a year away at a javelin training facility have done to Farrell’s game?
Steven Chen (Wesleyan): No weaknesses, Chen is a senior this year and looking to lead both his team and himself to new heights.
Ben Rosen (Bates): Rosen is aiming to make NCAAs for a 3rd-consecutive year, and Bates has a history of performing well at Individuals.
Taylor/Grodecki (Williams): The #1 seed at NCAAs last year and national runners-up should again be a favorite in 2018.
Cuba/DeQuant (Midd): The defending champs, this should be the #1 team for Midd this year, and with it comes very high expectations.
Bessette/Fung (Amherst): The top team in the region for most the spring, if both guys are back and committed this team should be one of the best in the country, with room to grow.
Tercek/Urken (Bowdoin): One of the biggest teams in the country, will the Polar Bears be able to count on their top spot now that the duo has a year of experience under their belts.
What team has the best chance to make the leap?
Which NE teams have the best chance to make it to the next tier in the rankings i.e. a top 30 team making top 20, top 20 making top 15 etc.
— Shaw Speer (@sspeer203) September 16, 2017
While I generally try to ignore Shaw “Sun” Speer on social media, he came through with an interesting (albeit self-serving) question. The NE teams ranked between #21 and #40 are: #21 MIT, #24 Skidmore, #27 NYU, #32 Colby, #34 TCNJ, #35 Hobart, #37 Stevens, and #40 RPI. Much as I’d like to say Colby just so Shaw will leave me alone for a bit (you know I love you, SS) I think the answer here is MIT. D3RegionalNEC believes that Hobart and RPI could challenge for the Liberty League title. NYU and TCNJ are coming off a year with at least a couple good wins. Colby has the best opportunity here, as they get a NESCAC schedule, with plenty of chances to make a statement and surge up the rankings, but the losses of Carl and Vlad will undoubtedly hurt even the hungriest of teams. Skidmore is talented and plays good doubles, but no longer has the luxury of leaning on likely points from Kai Yuen Leung. That leaves MIT, by far the most talented group of the bunch, and with another loaded recruiting class. It’s the easy-way out, Shaw, but it’s also the best answer. MIT has the best chance of any of the teams ranked between #21 and #40 to make the jump this year.
Enough of me for now. A decent amount of my teams play this weekend as a tune-up for ITAs, so I’ll try to have a recap for you around this time next week. I’m going to keep the question format going through the year, so feel free to challah at me (happy rosh hashanah) and send me anything you’d like discussed (honestly, it does not need to be about tennis…)
Amherst could be a threat to Middlebury too…3 dangerous freshmen and Fung, Kaplan, Owens (3 freshmen who actually had better springs than Burney and Marchalik) Bessette, Levitin all returning. Certainly a team to watch out for.
Marchalik transferred to Georgetown, so that may impact Amherst slightly
I’m guessing Jimmy knew that since he used Marchalik and Burney (who, along with Marchalik, was the most heavily rumored to have transferred). I was purposefully vague on Amherst in this article, because they have yet to post a roster for this year and I’m very curious to see exactly who is on the list. No matter how many transfers they’ve lost, Amherst still has the potential to be a monster, but it’s always harder to rely on freshmen and unproven players when your goals are bigger than simply making NCAAs.
The loss of Marchalik can only positively impact Amherst from a results standpoint. He lost 9 of his last 11 finished singles matches in the spring and his last 6 singles matches. Also, did not have any particularly consistent doubles results with Burney. Seems like a guy who Amherst can definitely live without.
I’m gonna have to disagree with you here. While Marchalik did struggle to end the year, we’re also talking about the freshman who beat Grant Urken (TWICE), Adrien Bouchet, Michael Liu, and Kyle Schlanger (amongst others) last year. In addition, losing a guy who plays towards the top of your lineup is tough because it bumps everybody else up a spot. We know Amherst recruits as well as anybody in the country, but losing one of the few players with top of the lineup experience is not a positive purely based off some of his mediocre results to end his freshman spring.
Is there that much of a discrepancy between D3 and D1? Or did Cuba significantly improve after leaving Michigan? He was third doubles at Michigan and a singles national champion in d3. Please feel free to share thoughts
That’s a good question and something that really varies for each individual player. As DIII continues to improve at such a rapid level, the gap continues to close between upper level DIII and mid-level DI. I don’t want to speak for Lubo, but perhaps one of the reasons that he transferred in the first place was that he felt he wasn’t improving/getting as much attention as some of the guys who played higher on that Michigan team? My guess, it’s a combination of both your factors. No matter how much better DIII has gotten, there will always be some discrepancy between DIII and DI tennis, however I would be shocked to learn that Lubo didn’t vastly improve at least some aspects of his game throughout a year working with Coach Hansen.