ASouth’s Weekend Recap

You may have forgotten already, but the Atlantic South had a jam-packed weekend for the past couple of days.  The top 4 teams in the region were all in national action, with our #1 and #2 teams playing each other.  Although we have some bracketology coming out for you a bit later, I wanted to get ahead and give you a quick recap of what happened this weekend.  This won’t be a very long and in detailed post, but it will have my thoughts and how these matches affect the DIII landscape for the rest of the year.  I’ll go through match-by-match (just 3 matches) and let’s see where we get.

Emory def. Hopkins, 7-2

http://www.hopkinssports.com/sports/m-tennis/stats/2013-2014/0405-eu.html

Woah.  That’s really the one word I’d have for this match after seeing the result.  I went through this match position-by-position and it actually didn’t end up half bad!  I was able to pick the doubles correctly and despite being wrong on a couple of picks in singles (really wrong with one) I at least picked the winner correctly.  Well, enough about me.  What does this match mean for these two teams for the rest of the year?

Starting with Emory, this match means a whole lot.  I had a hunch that Emory was starting to find its groove and just needed some things to fall their way to really get there.  Well, last week they played a somewhat depleted Case Western team and really took it to them.  They then played a Middlebury team that was basically playing their first real match of the year and were able to pull it out.  They’ve been starting to show signs of the team that I picked to win the whole tournament at the beginning of the year and they proved it again this weekend.  Taking a singles sweep from Hopkins is a huge feat.  I don’t think any other team can do that other than CMS this year.  It’s not even like all of their matches went 3 sets either.  They won 4 straight set matches and the other three setters were basically routine third sets.  Never was there a doubt that they wouldn’t win all these matches.  A couple of individual performances I want to call out specifically are Rafe Mosetick and Will Adams.  I picked both of these players to lose in straight sets, not because of their skill, but I really believed in the skills of Lim and Brown.  I’d say that’s for good reason.  Well, both Mosetick and Adams came out and took their matches in straight sets.  Mosetick was particularly impressive, winning the match 7-5 6-1.  I do hear that Tanner Brown took a bit of a spill in the first set, so it’s entirely possible he was dealing with something.  No matter, though, because it’s an impressive win either way.  Could Mosetick be the best or second best #3 player (behind CMS) for the rest of the year?  Potentially.  Emory now has great depth as we always knew they had, but now their top 3 are hitting their form.  I had actually tabbed their top 3 as a strength at the beginning of the year.  Emory’s singles is potentially the 2^nd best or 3^rd best in the nation now and they could potentially be the second or third best team now.  One negative takeaway I do want to take from this match, however, is doubles.  There is a clear blueprint for beating Emory and that is to take a big lead in doubles.  They rely heavily on their #1 team, but both their #2 and #3 teams got smoked in this match.  Hopkins does have some deep doubles, but Emory will probably have to dig out 4 doubles matches in NCAAs against the best teams.  CMS presents a problem for them because they have a great #1 team as well.  Relying heavily on one position to get you one point is living on the edge, so let’s hope that Emory can find a fairly reliable point at the bottom of the doubles lineup.

Moving onto Hopkins, what does this match mean for them?  To be honest, not a whole lot.  What it means is that they definitely aren’t as strong as Emory.  There are really only 3 national contenders this year (maybe 4) right now.  Hopkins seems to be at a slightly lower level than them.  They’ve notched a 6-3 loss to Wash U and now just lost to Emory in easy fashion.  They’re probably the 5^th best team out there right now, but that doesn’t make them different than the 8^th team in NCAAs.  They’ll still get a 1 seed in NCAAs.  Individually, I don’t think there is a lot to be worried about.  I had stated before that it’s really hard to sweep a top 10 team in doubles (unless you’re CMU, apparently) and they shouldn’t be disappointed in their doubles performance.   They may have to worry a little about Buxbaum/Walsh because it looks like the competitors are catching up to them.  Winning at #1 doubles is always variable, but these two have been blown out the last two times out.  They’re a talented duo so I’m hoping they’ll be fine in the long run.  In singles, were there any matches that you didn’t expect?  Brown and Lim stick out to me, but they’ve had good results this year already anyways so I don’t think there’s much to worry about.  Overall, this match was a match where they ran into a hot team that was just as talented or even more talented than them, and they played them on their home courts.  That’s a tough task so I’m not going to look all that much into it.  Not the best weekend for Hopkins, but this weekend was more about Emory.

CMU beats Case Western, 5-4

http://athletics.cmu.edu/sports/mten/2013-14/files/cwr-cmum.htm

Woah. I will use this word again to describe the CMU Case Western match.  This was one of the matches of the year and I am glad that the Atlantic South came out on top for this one. Screw you, D3Central!  In case you missed it, Case swept the Tartans in doubles, which both Central and I picked.  What happened next, I’m not sure anyone could have predicted.  Despite pulling Klawitter out of singles, Case and CMU battled to the bone in the first 4 matches.  Every single one of those matches went 3 sets.  Krimbill defeated Alla, which I predicted, but the rest were taken by CMU.  Both Duncan and Kirkov for CMU took 7-5 third sets in what must have been ridiculously tight games.  Essentially, CMU was down 4-1 in this one and somehow came back.  CMU has been a team that seems to come up on the short end throughout the years and this was a step forward for a team that has a ton of potential.  If this were last year, I’d say that CMU would’ve lost this match.  What the freshmen (Kirkov, Zheng, Wadwani) have brought to the team is not only skill, but toughness, attitude, and confidence.  They’ve come up big every time out there and have already been through a few 5-4 matches and basically put the team on their back.  CMU is probably a top 5 singles team right now after this performance (behind CMS, WashU, Emory, Hopkins).  They can legit say that they have a chance against basically any team because they hold advantages at a majority of the singles spots.  That’s 6 points right there.  While CMU can say they are a top singles team, they can also unfortunately say they are a bottom doubles team.  I figured they would get swept, but they got swept in decisive fashion.  8-3 across the board is a pretty dismal result.  Some major changes need to happen in doubles for this team to consider themselves amongst the true elite.  They can clearly compete, but what does them in is the doubles performance.  Not only is doubles three points, it’s a tone for the match.  There is literally no room for error if you go down 3-0.  One injury, one bad day, or one bad matchup already puts you in a 4-0 hole.  On a positive note, doubles is the one thing that is keeping this team from being a pretty damn great team.  Let’s remember it’s already April, so there is limited time for improvement, but it can still happen before UAAs or NCAAs.  Overall, great win for CMU no doubt about it, but there are still things to work on.

Mary Wash def. Swarthmore, 7-2

http://umweagles.com/sports/mten/2013-14/releases/2014040511u4yr

Not going to go too in depth into this match as this went as expected.  I actually had tweeted this 7-2 prediction out a few hours before the match because I didn’t have a full preview.  Mary Washington swept the doubles portion of this match and were able to basically cruise through the rest, only losing at #2 and #4 singles.  However, there was something worrying about where they lost.  Blahkin has moved back into the #2 position over Stratton Gilmore, and Charles has moved down to #4.  Well, Blahkin and Charles both lost to a weak Swarthmore team in my eyes.  Charles is the one that I am a bit concerned about.  Swarthmore is not known for their depth and I wouldn’t expect him to lose, especially routinely.  Let’s hope it was just a blip on the radar for the junior.  For everyone else, not too many concerns.  This match was a gimme and it solidified the fact that UMW will win their conference this year without an issue.

There’s your ASouth update.  It was a great weekend for the ASouth and its very possible that my region has three teams in the top 6-7 teams.  Now that is something I haven’t seen in a while.  I am looking forward to the UAA tournament that is happening in a few weeks where it looks like Emory will be the #2 seed and CMU will be the #3 seed.  That should make for an interesting battle for sure.  Until next time, folks. ASouth, out.