Traditionally, the ITA Northwest region has been great for determining who could beat Whitman in the event of a Walla Walla ebola outbreak, but some NWC teams aren’t quite as willing to get nutted by the Squirrels this year. (Boom. Thrown shade, topical humor, testicle joke, and intrigue all in the first sentence). Anyways, buckle up DIII fans because the first ITA preview of the season is headed to DIII Regional Town, and it’s gonne be a bumpy ride.
The Teams:
#12 Whitman, Pacific, George Fox, Lewis and Clarke, Scrubs (not the TV show)
Singles
The Favorite
Colton Malesovas (Whitman, Sr.)
Malesovas has played an exceedingly mediocre #1 singles for Whitman for the past two season (at least as far as top 15 teams go), but has come through when his team has needed him most. He won this tournament two years ago, but bowed out in the Round of 16 last year, so he’s far from a lock. He also has a loss to Lewis and Clark’s #1 from last year, who is in the field, and I’m sure some of Whitman’s young blood will be looking to dethrone him, as he did La Cava a couple years ago. That being said, if he made a jump this summer anything like the one he made from his freshman to sophomore year, he’ll be one of the best players in the country this season.
Players to Watch
The rest of Whitman’s lineup
This is a total cop out. I did it last year, and I’m not even sorry. Whitman lost Riggs, Roston, and (most importantly) La Cava to graduation and return thoroughly shaky 5 and 6 singles players, so the Squirrels need several players to step up this year if they want to keep a decent ranking. Right off the bat, I’m looking at freshmen Chase Friedman and Zach Hewlin (Coach Northam dipping into the Californian cookie jar pretty heavily again this year). Both guys have decent junior rankings and have apparently done enough in practice to earn seeds. You’ll also want to keep your eyes on Petar Jivkov, a sophomore who made the finals here last year. Among upperclassmen, James Rivers and Phil Locklear are both hoping to make a splash. Rivers came out of qualifying last year to make the semis last year and is also a 2-time ITA Small College Nationals doubles finalist, while Locklear showed flashes of brilliance at 2 for Earlham last year.
Dark Horses
dark horse (n) – a candidate or competitor about whom little is known but who unexpectedly wins or succeeds
There are quite a few good players for teams you’ve never heard of in the NWC, so I’m gonna separate it by team
Pacific: Giancarlo Battaglia (Jr.) and Brennan Faith (??)
Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica is a 2-time semifinalist in this tournament, so he is clearly a threat. He hasn’t had much success against Whitman players in the regular season, however, so I question his ability to go the distance here. Faith nearly made the quarters here last year, and had some decent results against the University of Portland this past weekend, so I threw him in as an afterthought. Pacific will really miss Zuroske (especially on the doubles court) and they don’t appear to have brought anyone in, so if they’re gonna make any progress this year, they’ll need to do it on the practice court
George Fox: Chris Liley (Jr.), Spencer Watanabe (So. transfer)
I got to hand it to Coach Ninteman here. In recent years, random NWC teams have been rising to the #2 spot in the conference, apparently based on a couple lucky recruiting breaks, and then faded from obscurity into the complete nothingness from whence they came. It doesn’t appear like his Bruins are ready to do that. While last season proved that Liley’s undefeated regular season singles record his freshman year was at least a little bit of a fluke, he remains a threat to beat a Whitman player or two. Watanabe was pretty much a 3-star when he graduated a year ago. Who knows how much better he’s gotten now that he’s with George Fox. It will be interesting to see what he can do.
Lewis and Clark: Avery West (Fr.), Micheal Brewer (So.)
I don’t know if you can characterize Lewis and Clark’s recent uptick in tennis prowess as meteoric, but it certainly is surprising. Brewer, a 3-star, made it to the quarters here last year, and has a win over Malesovas under his belt. I’m not sure he has the fitness to win 6 matches in a weekend, but he’s certainly a threat. West is even more interesting. The dude was a 4-star as recently as May, and finished with the highest TRN ranking of anyone in the region. He’s only a freshman, but if anyone were to surprise Whitman and take down this singles title, he would be my pick.
There you have it. The NWC is stronger than ever, and there’s at least one non-Whitman player poised to potentially win the singles tournament here for what might be the first time ever (I don’t have history books that go back that far, but this regional tournament isn’t actually that old. NWC and Texas used to play one together).
Doubles
The Favorites
Malesovas/Rivers (Whitman, Sr./Sr.)
Whitman has two doubles all-Americans on their roster, they’re both seniors, and they’re playing doubles together. This is a no-brainer. Nothing in doubles is ever a lock, and I would think these two’s service games would be vulnerable, but that might not matter here. They have to be your favorites, and you know Rivers will be hungry to get back to the national title match after losing the last two in a row to NESCAC teams.
Players to Watch
Hoeger/Hewlin (Whitman, So./Fr.)
No surprise here. It’s Whitman’s #2 doubles team. Hoeger was extremely effective at #2 doubles last year, and Hewlin is apparently Whitman’s best doubles-playing freshman, so there you go. If these two young guys get the seniors in the finals, you never know what nerves could do.
The rest of Whitman’s doubles lineup is so unproven, it’s like the anti-vaccination movement. I generally don’t put much stock in freshman doubles players, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how this works out. The Squirrels failed to win the doubles tournament here in 2009, and they might be more vulnerable now than ever. With that in mind, here are the…
Dark Horses
Pacific: Faith/Frazier (transfers)
I have a feeling this team just can’t be as dangerous as the Zuroske/Battaglia duo of the past three years, but they’re Pacific’s #1 team, so here they are.
George Fox: Liley/Watanabe (Jr./So. transfer)
The Bruins have never shown much of a predilection for doubles. Watanabe is a good doubles player. I’ll leave it at that.
Lewis and Clark: West/Ross (Fr./Jr.)
Brewer and Ross took down Whtiman’s #2 team at some point last year, so maybe with West in the mix, they’ll be that much more dangerous. Again, I think this team has the best chance to dethrone the Whitties.
There you have it, Ladies and Gentlemen: more than you ever wanted to know about the Northwest Conference Division III men’s tennis teams (certainly more than I ever wanted to find out). It could be an interesting year in the PNW, and I’m interested to see if this newest batch of Squirrel recruits has the nuts to keep Whitman strong or if a new challenger can threaten the NWC throne. (I closed with another testicles joke. You happy? I’m not, I only have one…)