2017 Season Preview: #15 Amherst ______________

Location: Amherst, Massachusetts

Coach: Todd Doebler, 3rd season at Amherst

ITA National Ranking: 15th

ITA Regional Ranking: 6th

Blog Power Ranking: 6th

Twitter Handle: @AmherstMTennis. Good before and after matches, not the best for in-match updates.

Overview: Happy Friday, boys and girls! This is my 3rd preview of the season, so does that mean I will be taking my 3rd NE team to the final four? It’s certainly within the realm of possibility! Today we get a closer look at the Amherst (insert name here). That’s right, after moving on from the beloved small pox inducing Lord Jeffs, Amherst is currently mascotless (they don’t have any mascots, Cotton), but they do have a lovely website devoted to the process of selecting a new mascot. For now, we’ll try out a variety of nicknames. The Amherst Diaper Dandies? Zykov and the frosh? The Doeblerettes? I’m willing to accept suggestions. Less importantly, Amherst is trying to bounce back from one of its worst years in recent memory, and while they graduated a ton of talent, they also brought in the best recruiting class in DIII history. Short overview, more blurbs, on we go.

Key Losses: Michael Solimano (#2 singles/#1 doubles), Aaron Revzin (#3 singles/#1 doubles), Andrew Yaraghi(#5-7 singles/#2 doubles), Ben Fife (#5 singles/#3 doubles)

Key Additions: Jayson Fung (5-star from California), Josh Marchalik (5-star from New Jersey), Gabe Owens (5-star from California), Oscar Burney (4-star from Washington), Nathan Kaplan (4-star from Massachusetts), Chris Paradis (3-star from New Jersey).

Realistic Best Case Scenario: The young guns ball out. 4 starting freshman + Zykov and Bessette at the top and bottom of the starting lineup carry Amherst to upset wins over Wesleyan and rival Williams. A season split with Midd leaves the purple people eaters as either the 2nd or 3rd team from NESCAC and Amherst is back where they are the most dangerous, the NCAA tournament, potentially even as a low #1 seed.
Realistic Worst Case Scenario: Everybody realizes that stars aren’t enough to win college tennis matches, including the Amherst freshmen. The artists formally known as the Jeffs stay competitive against the top of the conference but lose to Bowdoin, Midd, Williams, Wesleyan, AND throw in a big time upset loss to a MIT, Tufts, Bates, or Skidmore. They barely limp into NESCACs before getting whooped by the 3rd place team and end the year with an even lower ranking than the #15 that currently resides in front of their name.
Scenario Review: Safe bet, Amherst finishes somewhere between these two scenarios. But I’d lean closer to the best case scenario than the worst. I’ve said it already in this preview, and I no doubt will mention it again in the keys section below, but Amherst will go as far as its young blood takes them. If we get some maturity (we’ve already seen glimpses from Marchalik and Burney) combined with the talent, look out!

Lineup Prediction:

#1 Anton Zykov, senior, UTR=12.51, range #1-3. Zykov’s only action this fall was a disappointing 2nd round loss at the ITA to Indrakati (projected Williams #2-3). A senior this year, Zykov has seen the full spectrum of Amherst teams, from winning a national championship as a freshman (remember that he played #4 and took the first set from Butts in that match), to the catastrophe that was last year, Zykov has just about been through it all. However, unlike the team, he has remained very solid throughout that time. His injury cost him a shot at NCAAs last year, but I believe the senior will qualify this year by being one of the 5 best players in the region.

#2 Oscar Burney, freshman, UTR=12.46, range #2-4. And just like that, cue the freshman parade. Burney and Marchalik seem to have distanced themselves from their classmates with outstanding falls, but Burney gets the nod because he steamrolled his fellow freshman in the quarterfinals of the MIT tournament. Oscar had wins this fall over Wolfe (Bowdoin projected #2-3), Roberts (Wesleyan projected #5-7), Cauneac (MIT projected #1) and took close losses to Arguello (projected Brandeis #1) and De Quant (projected Middlebury #2). Considering that Burney was a meager 4-star (kidding) as compared to his peers, his early ascension should be at least slightly surprising

#3 Josh Marchalik, freshman, UTR=12.12, range #2-4. As I said, Marchalik also had an amazing fall. His results were probably slightly more impressive than Burney’s but the head-to-head loss sets him back just a tad. At the ITA, Josh beat Schlanger (projected Midd #4-6), Shastri (projected Williams #3-5), Rosovksy (projected Bowdoin #5-7), and Urken (projected Bowdoin #1-3), before falling to eventual champion and current top player in the region Lubo Cuba (projected Midd #1). He was not nearly as dominant at MIT, beating Schlanger again, Coran (projected Tufts #4-7), and Holtzmann (projected Wesleyan #5-7) all in three sets, before losing 2&1 to Burney. Whichever way you look at it, both Burney and Marchalik are going to be MAJOR players in the Herst lineup both this year and in the years to come.

#4 Zach Bessette, sophomore, UTR=11.66, range #3-7. Bessette’s fall was not nearly as productive as the freshmen around him in the lineup, which should be cause for concern. With all the incoming talent, and Doebler not appearing to favor upperclassmen, no lineup spot is safe! Zach proved that rule last year regularly playing as high as #2 with decent success, but he might be on the other side this year. He did notch a good win over Eusebio (Wesleyan projected #3-5) at MIT, but lost in 3-sets to Tyler Ng (projected Brandeis #4-5) in the 2nd round. He also didn’t play singles at the ITA, putting him behind Heidenberg at that moment. Maybe Jon should be higher here, but there are about 8-10 guys who could conceivably play 4 for Amherst this year. Go with the known quantity.

#5 Gabe Owens, freshman, UTR=12.37 (34% reliability), range #3-7. Owens debuted in singles at MIT, where had beat McGrory (Bowdoin projected #7-9) in the 1st round and took down Michael Liu (projected Wesleyan #2) in the 2nd round before losing to Arguello (projected Brandeis #1) 7-6 in the 3rd set. That’s quite a debut tournament, even if Gabe did have 5-stars attached to his name last year. As I said before, an army of guys will be challenging for this spot, so don’t expect it to stay rigid throughout the year, but I like the chances of Owens keeping a spot when he gets his chance.

#6 Jayson Fung, freshman, UTR=11.90, range #4-7. I have started writing this section for 3 different guys, but I’m settling on Fung for now. Arnaboldi has the experience, Heidenberg probably had a better fall, and Levitin is a mix of the two, but Fung’s potential gets him the preseason nod. Another 5-star recruit, Jayson beat Timo Van der Geest (projected Midd #4-6) in straight sets at MIT, and also beat Vanezis (Midd’s top recruit and projected #5-7) in the consolation draw. He lost 2&2 to Alex Taylor (projected Williams #2-3), but getting a couple big wins over Middlebury guys he would likely be matching up against at this spot bodes well for young Fung.

Other contenders: Andrew Arnaboldi, Jon Heidenberg, Jesse Levitin, Nathan Kaplan. I’m limiting my total list of guys at 10, otherwise I might as well put down the entire Amherst roster. Arnaboldi has the one thing that most of the other players on this list do not, real experience. Heidenberg and Levitin are sophomore who have shown some up but also some down, and Kaplan is yet another of the highly touted freshmen. If I were a betting man (lol), I’d say Kaplan has the most staying power. Normally I’d love the senior captain at the bottom of my lineup, but Coach Doebler hasn’t shown his seniors any particular love in these past two years (although this year may be a totally different situation as both Arnaboldis have the reputations for being excellent leaders). If Amherst drops a couple matches early on, my guess is we could even see other young guys like Paradis or Sun (ALL OF THE YOUTH) in order to get the youth as much match experience as possible.

Schedule Analysis: http://amherst.prestosports.com/sports/mten/2016-17/schedule

Back to the spring breaks of yesteryear, Amherst starts off it’s March trip to Florida by playing 10 matches in 5 days. They will be favored in all of those matches, but highlights include Kenyon, UT-Tyler, and Trinity Tx. Kenyon and Trinity Tx are ranked ahead of Amherst, and are excellent chances to boost the purple and white back towards the top-10. Those will be good matches for the freshmen, while Kenyon should be the closest, both Texas teams will have been playing outdoors for months. If Amherst can get through those unscathed, a big ole match at Emory closes out the trip. That will be the best non-NESCAC match of their season, and it should be telling as to just how much work this young Amherst team needs. The major thing with this Florida trip is that there are no real Pool-C opportunities. Lots of indirects by playing the Texas teams, but nothing quite like a match against PP or Redlands.

However, Amherst will get plenty of Pool-C matches in April after they return home. They travel to Tufts which is always tough, but it will be a revenge match this year which should prevent them from looking ahead to hosting Bowdoin the following weekend. After the match with the defending national champs, the usual parade of NESCAC and NE foes come into play. Perhaps most importantly through the rigorous month that is any NESCAC schedule, Amherst hosts matches against Bowdoin, Wesleyan, Williams, and Middlebury. Those new courts will really be put to the test, but I’m not quite sure how that scheduling worked out because they weren’t on the road at all 4 last year (only 3 of the 4 if i remember correctly). The conference matches are even more important this year due to Amherst’s lack of Pool-C competition from outside the conference, and will likely determine Amherst’s postseason fate.

Keys to Success:

1. Buying in: 

   

   A very popular rumor last year was that Amherst’s seniors were slightly burnt out and didn’t fully buy into Coach Doebler’s way of doing things. The logic is easy enough to follow, the upperclassmen had been coached by one of the best in the land (Garner) and had won a national championship. A new sheriff in town doesn’t always sit well with the old-timers, but this year HAS to e different. Doebler is really bringing in a slew of “his guys” this year, and most of the guys on the Garner train have left the station. That being said, if any of that petulance remains, the team leaders will need to squash it out early. Getting the underclassmen, and especially with this talented a freshman class, to buy into whatever mentality Coach Doebler wants his Amherst program to practice is likely the most important thing that will happen to Amherst tennis this year. It sets the tone not only for this season, but also the next couple seasons and could either expedite or impede the development of the most talented recruiting class to ever hit DIII.

2. Fitness: As you will see, all three of these keys have more to do with freshmen than anything else. College tennis is a big leap from high school, no matter how good you were as a junior, but especially in the fitness department. You play A LOT more tennis throughout the year and that takes it’s toll both mentally and physically. Luckily for Amherst they have the makings of a dominant B-team and anyone of them will be willing to step up in case of an injury. However, fitness is obviously also important for long 3-setters in the sun. For example, Amherst plays 10 matches in its first 5 days in Florida for Spring Break. Obviously the A-team won’t play all 10 matches, but that’s a ton of tennis in the hot sun after you’ve been practicing in a bubble for the past 5 months. Staying fit this winter, and injury prevention during the season are paramount for this crew.
3. Doubles: Another large difference between high school and DIII tennis is the importance of the doubles. Most high school players do not or have not played competitive doubles in years, and those who did likely viewed it as the lighter portion of their tennis schedule. Doubles is more important in DIII than almost any other level of tennis, and it will almost certainly be the difference between a 5-4 win and a 5-4 loss at some point during the season. Coach Doebler had his young guys playing a lot of doubles at the fall tournaments, and my guess is they will be mixing it up to start the spring as well. Doubles improvement could be the difference between a trip to NCAAs and a 2nd year on the outside.

Season Prediction: Am I taking my 3rd straight NE team to the final four?? In a word, no. I obviously like the direction that Amherst is headed (only a fool wouldn’t), but I think the top of DIII is too strong for them to make that deep a run this early. That being said, I expect nothing less than a return to the National championship at some point in the next 4 years. As my Wesleyan prediction runs out this year, D3AS can now put me on the clock for Amherst. See you at Antonio’s.