It’s like Christmas came early this year, TWO season previews in a day! WOW! Like I tweeted earlier this week, it’s the most wonderful time of the year, aka season preview time. If you are new to the blog, this is where we take the time to break down teams by roster and schedule to give you our best shot at predictions on how the season might go based off of the fall seasons. However, as many of you many know, the fall is usually pretty unreliable when it comes to predicting spring results, so this is really just a crap shoot. Anyways, I’m going to start off with Washington and Lee, a team that jumped into the top 30 last year after a gutsy win over CNU last season. This is a team that took a couple big losses at the top of the lineup, but definitely has the potential to rebound this season.
Location: Lexington, VA
Coach: Dave Detwiler (18th season)
ITA National Ranking: 30
ITA Regional Ranking: 6 (Atlantic South)
Blog Power Ranking: 31
Power 6 UTR: 65
Twitter Handle: @wlumenstennis
Key Losses: Will Bannister (2nd Singles, 1st Doubles), Jordan Krasner (1st Singles, 2nd Doubles)
Key Additions: Harry Shepard (11.17 UTR – unreliable), Tyebo Loan (10.67 UTR), Noah Tapp (10.25 UTR)
Realistic Best Case Scenario: The tweet (pictured once again on the side) comes true and the Generals have actually reloaded this season. They continue their good doubles from the fall and with enough talent plus a chip on their shoulder, W&L pulls off a couple regional upsets, propelling themselves into the top 25 nationally.
Realistic Worst Case Scenario: The loss of Bannister and Krasner proves to be too much for W&L to overcome and they pretty much stay put. They will lose to all the teams who they’re supposed to lose to and march over their conference competition in route to another championship and an auto bid to NCAAs.
Schedule Analysis: The schedule is pretty much the exact same as last year, which is totally fine because there are plenty of winnable matches as well as opportunity matches for the Generals this season. You can find the whole schedule here.
W&L can pretty much sleepwalk through their first four matches against conference foes before taking on two notable ASouth foes, Swarthmore and Johns Hopkins in PA. After these two matches we’ll really get a good gauge on how good the Generals will be this year. I’ll most likely team up with the real ASouth for a full weekend preview of these matches. W&L has the talent to make both of these matches competitive, but after the poor showing at ITAs I’m very hesitant to pick the Generals in either of these matches.
The very next weekend W&L takes on Mary Washington, who absolutely took it to the Generals last season, winning the match 8-1. While Mary Washington has been on a steady decline over the past few years, I still don’t think the Generals have enough firepower to take down the Eagles. The rest of March is pretty much conference matches that should be easily winnable.
The final six matches of the season include four strong Atlantic South teams, Emory, Sewanee, CNU and NC Wesleyan. I think the Generals could win three of these four matches, but could also lose all four and finish the season in a rather disappointing fashion. After this, W&L will compete in and win the ODAC tournament before earning their way into the NCAA tourney via Pool A.
Keys to Success:
- Stepping Up – Losing two of your top players is always tough and the only ways to combat that are bringing in new studs or having current players step up. Not to say that Loan, Sheppard and Tapp aren’t studs but after the fall results, they are very much unproven. If the Generals want to continue to advance in the right direction, instead of remain stagnant, older players such as Ely and MARCH ZHENG need to step up and take over those spots.
- Continued Doubles Success – This fall was successful for W&L doubles wise, including TWO teams running to the QF of their ITAs. Like I said in the season preview last year, doubles needs to step up. If the Generals can continue this upward trend, then I believe they have a real chance at upsetting some pretty good teams.
The Beautiful Duchossois Tennis Center - Take Advantage of Being at Home – Two of the Generals’ biggest and most winnable matches are at home this year, Mary Washington and CNU. While early in the article, I might have made the chances seem bleak against the Eagles, I do sincerely think W&L has a chance to pull an upset over the Eagles. It will be difficult but with a rowdy home crowd and nothing to lose, the Generals could pull it off.
Prediction: Oh man, here comes the hard part. Part of me really wants to believe that W&L has what it takes to make the jump into the top 25, but the realist in me just can’t completely buy in. I’m going to say that the Generals go 12-6 with losses to Swarthmore, Johns Hopkins, Mary Washington, Emory, Sewanee and CNU. Prove me wrong boys!
Who needs spelling/grammar checks? And with that, I have finished a bottle of wine and my first season preview. As usual I’d love to hear your opinions, so tweet me, email me or leave a comment below! (I know you’re not going to, but it’s worth a shot.) There are many more previews to come so be sure to check the blog regularly and also harass real ASouth about getting his “Top 10 TV shows to Binge During Finals” article out this weekend. Until next time, Reg ASouth out!