ITA Recaps: New England Edition

 

The Blog has been on its game of late, and because of this I’ve been allowed to attend the other aspects of my life. I’ve heard the birds chirping, the wind blowing, and the people laughing. Let me tell you, I can’t stand most birds, the wind is cold, and I certainly hate people. Maybe D3West is rubbing off on me, but I’ve been wearing my cynical cap of late, and it’s time to take a few teams down a peg. I don’t know if you all read the Northeast ITA recap posted by our new friend D3Regional, but those were some of the friendliest report card grades I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s slept with like at least ½ of those teams. Actually, that would be a lot of travel. ANYWAYS, I’m here to recap the New England ITA, and I’m gonna be a bit more thorough and a bit harsher than the rest of my counterparts. If you don’t like it, there’s the back button, feel free to click back to D3AS’ recaps and enjoy the Emory slobber. I’m going to recap school by school based on the regional rankings from the end of last spring. I tried to go back and write down every result from each school, and I’m sure I missed a few. Feel free to add on anything that I missed in the comments section.

 

#1 AMHERST

Singles Results: #2 Solimano=Finalist, #4 Zykov=3rd round loss, #9-15 Yaraghi=3rd round loss, #9-15 Revzin=3rd round loss, Einbinder=2nd round loss, Arnaboldi=1st round loss, Scheiner=1st round loss.

Doubles Results: #2Revzin/ Solimano=Finalists, #3 Zykov/Yaraghi=2nd round loss, Arnaboldi/Scheiner=1st round loss, Einbinder/DeBracamonte=1st round loss.

Grade: B-

Recap: Wow. Right off the bat I can already feel the Amherst fans going to their keyboards. My apologies to big brother B, but other than Solimano and the sexiest one-handed backhand in DIII, the Jeffs didn’t impress me. Zykov got a bit unlucky with his ankle injury, as it looked like he was “rolling” up a set on Chen in the quarters. I thought this might be Yaraghi’s time for a “comeback” but he was taken down in straight sets by Frons (Midd), whom Reindel seemed to have no trouble with last spring.

My big question is who will fill in at the bottom of the Jeffs lineup this year? Einbinder/Arnaboldi/Scheiner seem to have the leg up, but I can’t stop wondering what happened to Mr. Fife? Two disappointing 1st round losses in the doubles (albeit from the Jeffs #3 and #4 teams) cap off a weekend that without Solimano might not have earned the Jeffs a passing grade. Although I promised to be overly critical in these analyses, I do need to offer a big tip of the cap and scratch of the pant-leg to Mr. Solimano. For the last two years we’ve been saying he looks like he could be the best player in DIII. While we may not have truly believed it, it’s time to believe it baby. I can’t wait to see what this kid does over the next two years

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#2 MIDDLEBURY

Singles Results: Frons=Semifinalist, #6 Farrell=Quarterfinalist, #3 Smolyar=3rd round loss, Jackson=2nd round loss, #9-15 Campbell=1st round loss, Mountifield=1st round loss, Frost=1st round loss.

Doubles Results: Smolyar/Mountifield=Quarterfinalists, Campbell/Schlanger=Quarterfinalists, #7 Frost/Heidrich=2nd round loss.

Grade: B

Recap: Pretty up and down tournament for the hosts. If you’re Coach Hansen, you’re probably ok with what went down last weekend, simply because the other “elite” teams kind of looked like crap. I can live with the 1st round losses from Mountifield and Frost, though it’s a bad sign if Courtney hopes to remain a fixture at the bottom of the lineup, but the Campbell loss bothers me most. I know he had the toughest draw of any of the Panthers, Shastri (Williams) was the lone bright spot for the Ephs as we’ll see in the next blurb, but Campbell has owned this tournament. He made two deep runs in his first two years at Midd, and back to back early exits at home tournaments must be somewhat concerning for the talented junior. He somewhat made up for his early singles exit by matching the Panthers best run in the dubs, but there doesn’t appear to be a clear #1 doubles team in Vermont.

Looking at the rest of the Panther’s tournament. Smolyar bowing out to Planche in an absurd 3rd round match isn’t too worrying, although I do wonder about the mental stability of Ari in the clutch. I’m sure he’ll right that aspect of his game, and I see him being a dominant player towards the top of the Panther lineup. Freshman Farrell followed his Midd Invite success with a quarterfinal run, but then got smoked by Chen (Wesleyan). A tip of the cap and tussle of the hair to Jackson Frons, who made one of the more surprising runs in the tournament, beating Carpenter (Trin), Yaraghi (Amherst) and Telkedzhiev (Tufts) before getting rolled over by Chen in the semis.

 

#3 WILLIAMS

Singles Results: Shastri=3rd round loss, Astrachan=2nd round loss, Schidlovsky=2nd round loss, #5 Harron=1st round loss, Raventos=1st round loss, Weiss=1st round loss.

Doubles Results: Raghavan/Astrachan=Quarterfinalist, Raventos/Shastri=2nd round loss, #4 Grodecki/Schidlovsky=2nd round loss, Sadowski/Harron=2nd round loss.

Grade: D+

Recap: Not the tournament Coach Greenberg had hoped for. I really do consider Greenberg to be one of the best coaches in the country, and I know he will turn this Eph team around by the spring. That being said, he has his work cut out for him. What the heck happened to Harron? I was expecting HUGE things from C-Rad, and he lost in the 1st round. I know that Murad is a tough out, but if Harron is planning on being the Eph’s top dawg, that’s a match he has to win 9/10 times. I’ve already speciated that this might not be Williams’ year to make the leap back the top of the NESCAC, but the ITA just added a whole new level to that speculation.

The biggest Eph issue in my eyes has to be the doubles. Along with Amherst, Middlebury, and Bates, Williams has always played some of the best top doubles in the country. Williams got 4 teams into the draw, and none were left after Saturday. Just to give you an idea, the Ephs had 3 teams make the semis just a few years ago. Raghavan/Astrachan benefitted from a Zykov withdrawal, but no Eph team physically won a match on the court after the 1st round. I know, I know, Astrachan took a set from Telkedzhiev, Harron, Raventos, and Schidlovsky had tough draws,  but all of the early losses in both draws have me thinking this must be the worst ITA for Williams in quite some time.

 

#4 BOWDOIN

Singles Results: Savage=Quarterfinalist, Mo=2nd round loss, Wolfe=1st round loss, Tercek=1st round loss, Roddy=1st round loss.

Doubles Results: Wolfe/Roddy=2nd round loss, #6 Savage/Tercek=2nd round loss.

Grade: C

Recap: Where are the studs? Don’t get me wrong, I like seeing new-blood gaining valuable experience, but the absence of Bragg, Trinka and Wolstencraft were quite noticeable. Chase Savage had a great tournament, taking down #7 Granoff (Brandeis) in the 1st round with ease. Chase made the quarters before putting up a decent fight against Solimano. Mo’s 2nd round finish doesn’t tell us much, as he beat a Nichols player not named Roode and then got rocked by Solimano as well. Wolfe and Tercek likely had some freshmen jitters as they each dropped 3rd sets in the 1st round. Give Tercek some credit as he got a set from Zykov (Amherst) (which seemed hard to do before the ankle injury). But these freshmen were brought in to help the Polar Bear’s doubles. They don’t seem to be an immediate fix. They two doubles teams did get out of the 1st round, but both fell with relative ease in the 2nd round. I can’t punish the freshmen for being a bit out of their element, but I do know that Wolstencraft played earlier this fall. Is he hurt? Perhaps Bragg is too? I’ve been told that Trinka is abroad, but if that isn’t the case, please comment and let us know.

 

#6 TRINITY

Singles Results: #8 Carpenter=2nd round loss, Matingo=1st round loss, Mandel=1st round loss, Mbithi=1st round loss.

Doubles Results: #8 Myers/Carpenter=1st round loss, Traff/Mbithi=1st round loss.

Grade: F

Recap: THEY LEFT AFTER THE 1ST DAY. Nuff said. I could stop writing about this team now and it would sum up their tournament. Carpenter was the only Bantam to win a match, taking down Lee (Bates) in straight sets before falling to Frons. Matingo and Mbithi both got screwed with their draws, but Mandel losing a 1st rounder to Brockman (Tufts freshman) was very surprising. This has to be the year for Trinity, as they’ll be graduating like 92% of their talent, and so far so bad. THEY FREAKIN LEFT AFTER THE FIRST DAY!!! A short recap for a short tournament

 

#7 BATES

Singles Results: #9-15 Planche=Quarterfinalist Lee=1st round loss, Ordway=1st round loss, Feldman=1st round loss.

Doubles Results: #1 Planche/Ellis=Champions, #5 Ordway/Lee=1st round loss.

Grade: B-

Recap: Pierre Planche, boys and girls. I should give more credit to Ellis, but basically Planche alone takes Bates from an F into the 80% range. I worry about this Bates team. I think Planche/Ellis can win a National Championship (Planche/Berg came within a few games of it last year) but I think this Bates team is in trouble at #2 and the rest of the singles lineup. To be fair, Ellis and Schwartz didn’t play singles, but NOBODY ELSE WON A MATCH. It’s like Trinity all over again. Lee lost to #8 Carpenter, Ordway to Wong (Tufts), and Feldman dropped a 3rd set breaker to Hall (Gordon). At first I thought the Feldman loss was terrible, but then Hall went and beat Roberts (Wesleyan) in the 2nd round. All I know is, Feldman and Smolyar should take a class on winning close matches. Brent played a lot of close matches last year, and basically lost them all (with the exception of my boy B-Tan, sorry Brian). This team needs to get healthy, and needs to become rock solid at #’s 5&6 because they’ll likely be underdogs at #’s 2-4 against most NESCAC teams.

Back to Planche for a minute, he had a great win over Smolyar (3rd set breaker) in the 3rd round, and then was down a set and a break to Liu before having to retire. The rumor was full body cramps, which are never fun. But he must’ve been ok because he went out and won a doubles match immediately after withdrawing from his quarterfinal with Liu (Wesleyan). Pierre could very easily be a top 10 player in the country, but he will need to work on his fitness if he’s going to slog it out through a lot of tough matches in the springtime.

 

#8 TUFTS

Singles Results: #9-15 Telkedzhiev=Quarterfinalist, Ali=3rd round loss, Wong=2nd round loss, Brockman=2nd round loss, Jacobson=1st round loss.

Doubles Results: Jacobson/Wong=1st round loss, Telkedzhiev/Ali 1st round loss.

Grade: C+

Recap: My reactions to the Jumbo’s performance varied big time between the days of the tournament. After the early singles, I heard people ready to anoint this team as a top-4 NESCAC team. Let me tell you, they might be, but they have a lot to work on before they get there. There were a couple of nice singles wins outside of Telkedzhiev (who had another great ITA run in his own right, taking down overall #1 seed Carl Reid in the 3rd round), including freshman Zain Ali taking down Einbinder (Amherst) in straights and making the 3rd round. Fellow frosh Brockman also looked good smashing Mandel (Trin) in the 1st round before falling to Savage (Bowdoin) in the 2nd. The Jumbo disappointment has to be Rob Jacobson. After beating Planche at Midd just a fortnight prior, Rob-Bob lost to Thylen (Babson) in the 1st round. That could have been the single most surprising result in the entire tournament.

In addition to an early singles exit, Jacobson and his fellow Jumbo doubles players took big elephant sized poops in the 1st round with neither team getting more than 5 games against their respective opponents. Like Bowdoin and most of the conference for that matter, Tuft’s biggest issue last season (other than the quitting) was their doubles. If that doesn’t get straightened out by March, it won’t matter that the Jumbos can stick with the NESCAC elite from #1-6 because they’ll already be down 3-0.

 

#9 BRANDEIS

Singles Results: Arguello=2nd round loss, Bunis=2nd round loss, #7 Granoff=1st round loss, Lubarsky=1st round loss.

Doubles Results: Arguello/Cherkin=Semifinalists, Lubarsky/Granoff=1st round loss.

Grade: C+

Recap: Roller coaster ride for the Judges, but overall this has to be deemed an improvement over an abysmal showing at the Middlebury Invitataional. Maybe it’s all the medicine-ball sprints, or maybe it’s Coach Lamanna’s boyish good looks, but Deis looked like they were ready to join the pile of mediocrity that is current NE tennis. Arguello/Cherkin had the best Judges run at the ITA, going all the way to the semifinals before losing to #2Revzin/Solimano (Amherst). Bunis had a nice win over Mountifield (Midd) to start the tournament, and Arguello squeaked out a good close win over the freshman Wolfe (Bowdoin) before losing to #9-15Yaraghi (Amherst) in 3-sets.

On the less green side of the tennis ball, what has happened to Brian Granoff’s game? He lost in the 2nd round at the Midd Invite, and lost in the 1st round of the ITA. Savage (Bowdoin) is a good/consistent player, but he played #5 for the Polar Bears last year. Granoff made Individual Nationals for pete’s Pauri’s sake. BG has to find his game soon if the Judges are serious about keeping their top-10 regional ranking.

 

#10 WESLEYAN

Singles Results: Chen=Finalist, Liu=Semifinalist, #9-15 Roberts=2nd round loss, Yadav=1st round loss.

Doubles Results: Roberts/Rudovsky=Semifinalists, Lyon/Smith=1st round loss.

Grade: B+

Recap: Finally, I’ve been waiting to talk about the Cards for like 5-pages now. There is a lot of good in this tournament for the boys from Connecticut, but there are some questions to go along with it. We’ll start with the good. Steven Chen looks like an absolute beast out there. The freshman took down the likes of Wong, Zykov, Farrell, and Frons before falling to “Roger Federer” (Solimano) according to the Wesleyan twitter feed. Realistically, those are the #4, #2, #2, and #4 from a handful of NESCAC teams sitting above the Cardinals. Chen will need to not only beat 2’s and 4’s, but throw in a smattering of #1’s as well. Right now, the battle for #1 might be between Chen and Michael Liu. Liu had a good run of his own, taking out Murad, Revzin, and Planche before also losing to Solimano. I wish Wesleyan had played in the Midd Invite like last fall, because I’m anxious to see just how good this team is.

While Chen and Liu were moving through the singles draw, their partners in crime were having a tougher time (back off, I can rhyme). Jake Roberts lost to the surprise of the tournament, Zach Hall from Gordon College in the 2nd round. Another somewhat lackluster performance from Roberts, who was quite streaky as the top Cardinal last spring. He will need to put in a few more consistent performances in order for Wesleyan to make the move that many people are anticipating. Like Tufts, Wesleyan is super deep, but they certainly need to improve their doubles from 2013-2014. The semifinal run from Roberts/Rudovsky is certainly a start. R squared took out a Bowdoin and a Williams team en route to a semifinal loss to the eventual champion Bobcat team. Other Wesleyan doubles teams will need to follow in their footsteps. Lyon/Smith had a tough 1st round opponent with Reid/Murad, but more must come from the Cardinals’ doubles teams.

 

#12 COLBY

Singles Results: #1 Reid=3rd round loss, Murad=2nd round loss, Hosang=1st round loss.

Doubles Results: Reid/Murad=Quarterfinalists.

Grade: B-

Recap: This grade could be a little inflated, likely the only grade that is, but I’m sticking with it. Even though Carl Reid lost in the 3rd round to Telkedzhiev (Tufts) he did still earn the #1 seed. That in and of itself is a major accomplishment for the Colby tennis program. Reid will be back, and I have very little doubt that he will use this to fuel him through the freezing Waterville winter. Unlike Reid, Murad had a good singles tournament. It’s tough to say that making the 2nd round constitutes a good tournament. But when you take down Conrad Harron (Williams) in the 1st round, you must be doing something right. After taking down Harron, Murad lost to the eventual semifinalist Liu (Wesleyan) in 3 tough sets. In the doubles, I see this Reid/Murad team as the 3rd most talented team in the draw, and an initial favorite to make NCAAs (along with Revzin/Solimano, Planche/Ellis, and Heinrich/Foran). They had a tough draw with a solid Wesleyan team and a seeded Middlebury team before Revzin/Solimano (Amherst), and they worked to the quarters with ease. After Reid and Murad, I don’t know much about Mr. Hosang, other than he’s a 3-star freshman from New Hampshire. But I do know that his 2&2 loss to Gea (MIT) was not the debut Coach Wang was looking for. I think Colby has a shot of making it back into the regional top-10, but they’ll need some help other than their dynamic duo of Reid/Murad

 

#13 MIT

Singles Results: Gea=2nd round loss, Oh=1st round loss, Wang=1st round loss.

Doubles Results: Wang/Oh=2nd round loss.

Grade: D+

Recap: Kenny Gea (that doesn’t get old) was the only Engineer to get a singles win, and that is not a promising thing for Coach Hagymas’ squad. Gea also got stomped by Planche (Bates) in the 2nd round, but MIT got to stay until Saturday with a doubles win from their lone team, Wang/Oh, who took down the #5 seeds. The score says 7-5 on the site, so maybe that’s misreported? I did hear a rumor that the Ordway/Lee team withdrew for some reason, but that source told me that they were winning when they withdrew so really who knows anything? Certainly not me.  Anywho, this MIT team without Zhang may have to actually work to win its billionth straight conference title.

 

#20 BABSON

Singles Results: Vu=2nd round loss, Thylen=2nd round loss

Doubles Results: Doyley/DiFiore=1st round loss

Grade: B-

Recap: Honestly, even though they’re ranked #20 in the region, Babson might be closer to the teams listed below than the teams listed above. So their two singles wins should be seen as an achievement, especially Thylen over Jacobson (Tufts). I know both Vu and Thylen fell in the 2nd round, considering the Beavers played this tournament without Perez (who might be abroad?) they should feel like they accomplished something this weekend.

 

The Other Guys

(Colby-Sawyer/Gordon/Nichols/Southern Maine/UMB/USCGA)

Let’s be honest, you all are tired of reading at this point. If you’ve stuck with me this far, you’re either really excited to read about one of non-ranked regional teams, or you really need a hobby. It’s really tough for the lesser teams to stick with the bullies of New England I’m going to sum up the six remaining teams in a single small recap.

Singles Results: 2-8 in the 1st round, 1-1 in the 2nd round, 0-1 in the 3rd round

Doubles Results: 0-6

Recap: 1st round singles winners include Hall (Gordon) over Feldman (Bates) and Utell (Colby-Sawyer) over Lai (UMB). Zach Hall was the only one to continue his tournament run by taking down #9-15 Roberts (Wesleyan) in two close 2nd round sets. Hall eventually fell in the 3rd round to Chase Savage (Bowdoin), 1&0. Hall’s win over Roberts was the highlight of the ITA for these lower ranked teams, seeing as each of these teams failed to register a doubles win. In fact, only one of these six teams managed to get six games off their opponents (Utell/McCann from Colby Sawyer).

 

 

Bless each and everyone of you for getting to this point. Look for D3Central to be continuing the interview trend with our first “Coaches Corner” at some point tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll be coming out with a Small College Nationals preview towards the end of the week. Smoke if you got em…