D3West here. I’m just gonna introduce this piece by saying that Ballou was an absolute champion on the Twitter machine today, and I think it’s really awesome that he reached out to off to cover this weekend’s festivities. It’s late for him after a long day, so please excuse any grammatical errors. Without further ado, I give you Ballou:
The Ojai: the biggest battle ground for the West Region…or is that CMS? I can never decid because it always seems like Stags run wild both in this tournament and in their fortress of a tennis complex. I played 6 or 7 Stag’s in my two Ojai’s combined in singles alone. WTF?! Unsurprisingly, there’s not too much different this year either. Let me just run through some stats here for you so you can all feel me on this.
Warren Wood (1) Bye 6-1 6-1
Max Macey (WHO?) 6-3 6-3 2-6 6-3 6-3 (upset #6 Wiechert)
Lester Yeh 7-6 6-2 3-6 0-6 (lost to #14 Hudson)
Skyler Butts(8) Bye 6-4 6-4
Glenn Hull 6-1 6-1 5-7 4-6 (lost to #9 Yasgoor)
Joe Dorn(5) Bye 6-4 7-6
Zhenya Pereverzin 4-6 6-1 7-5 6-4 1-6 3-6 (lost to #3 Konstantinov)
Nikolas Marino(7) Bye 6-2 6-2
Daniel Morkovine 6-3 6-3 5-7 0-6 (lost to #16 Wilson)
I feel like I’m recapping on CMS and only CMS right off the bat here but you can’t overlook the fact that they have 4 seeded players inside the top 8 seeds along with having a non-starting player upset the #6 seed? Does anyone know if Paul Settles has a vault filled with “Mike’s Secret Stuff” from Space Jam? I know I have a lot of question marks but it seems that he does and starts handing it out during the Ojai to his players because the Stags do it every year here
Enough of me bragging for the CMS Stags, they’ve had enough of the spot light today. Moving on to more familiar territory: Cal Lu. Not holding my breath here or anything but, the Kingsmen have 3 players moving onto the second day of the tournament. Whittier, Redlands, and Pomona all having 2 players left with Cruz and Chapman rounding out the Sweet Sixteen with one player surviving the first day.
Cruz is going through a lot right now, a coaching change, continuous loss of #1 players (D3West interlude: Pybas, Nuremberg, Larsen, and Bettwy are all top Slugs who have missed time for one reason or another), the graduation of the master of his craft – Halabi, and they can find just one singles win at the Ojai. Cruz was a D3 recruit’s dream school while Bob Hansen was around, but they can’t seem to get the players like they use to. Although, one player did stand out and that would be none other than Max Littlejohn. (Read in Players of the Day)
Whittier’s day was a day full of ups and downs, Konstantinov was all over the place and BOTH Schommer and Konstantinov thought it would be funny to scare their coach in each of their first singles matches. Both splitting sets and have somewhat close 3rd sets to move forward. The rest of the players pretty much fell out of the draw as expected. Shimizu had a bit of an odd match going down 0 & 0 to Nichols of CLU, which I didn’t think would happen that badly. Big K is obviously the more dangerous one and the one with the easier draw on Day 2. (D3West interlude: even though the results didn’t show it as much, it was an excellent first day for Whittier. Kenny beat Goetz before nearly taking down Lipscomb, Linsicott pushed Morkovine, and Chavez almost got through against LJ. Good stuff from the Poets).
Redlands (4) Lipscomb has always been a threat to anyone. I know he battled hard every match we had with each otherm so I never count him out of anything. The only issue is that you can’t always fully count him in anything as well. He had a little bit of a struggle going three sets with Mark Kenny of Whittier. To this I will applaud Mark for taking that set off of Pat, but I think the tides will change. Pat told me he was a bit nervous going into it and was just glad to have the first day behind him and really looks forward to the fast courts at Thatcher tomorrow morning. Parker Wilson I haven’t been able to see play much, but I did catch a game or so of his second set and he looked to be playing great for a #16 seed but has a tough match tomorrow against #2 Cardenas of CLU.
Pomona-Pitzer. How I miss the days of Tommy Mayer; he was one of the funniest players…to watch (he knows I’m joking) and to hang with when at this tournament or anywhere in general. Enough of my reminiscing from past years, YASGOOR, shout out to this kid since he trains with me every once in a while, and his dad hired me today to drag his skinny butt in the gym with me this summer. Well this been pole of a player pulled off the #9 seed, splitting between (5) Wiechert and (14) Hudson. Wiechert my friend, tough day out there against a confident Max Macey.
Cal Lutheran had a strong showing despite the season they have had so far. Yes, it hurts to watch them have a below .500 record this season, but it lifted my spirits to watch them play today. Cardenas, Treacy and Nichols all played solid tennis, with Treacy getting an upset over (15) Scandalis of Cruz but, don’t take it harsh Eli buddy ole’ pal, but I think a good amount of people had Treacy as the most likely person to upset a seed. This was a great match up for Treacy, and he definitely went for it and took it.
Chapman wasn’t able to do much today in the form of beating anyone up on the court except for stand out #12 Justin Thompson who cruised through his only match of the day 6-2 6-1 over Fergus of CLU. He did well today but tomorrow will be a tall order, playing against Konstantinov next round.
Touching base with any other results would be a little bit of a waste since it already is so late and I am trying to get this thing done before D3AtlanticSouth chews my head off for being late for his play date with his boyfriends tonight. ; )
Players of the Day
Max Macey
Has anyone else heard of this kid? Because I didn’t until now. This kid has talent; let me just say that. Can he be a world class pro someday? who knows, but right now he’s got his game locked in and hungry for more. He took down Wiechert, which as most players and coaches know, isn’t the easiest thing to do on any day.
Max Littlejohn
Max decided to take his respectable season and #10 seed in singles and almost throw it away in his first match. Max had a rough first set going down 6-7(5) but stayed strong in the second and third sets to move onto Day 2 of the Ojai. Max then decided to go completely against his own name and play BIG in both of his doubles matches following a win over the Redlands team of Wilson/Burchett 8-2 with a big upset over #7 seeds Marino/Pereverzin of CMS 8-4. Not only is that a win over a player who has made it to the doubles final of the NCAA’s in 2011 but also a player who has made it to the semi’s of Ojai last year and the quarters the year before that.
Markovine & Yeh
Both you guys played great doubles today. Taking down Maassen/Hudson of Pomona first round 8-3 and then (5) Goetz/Scandalis of Cruz 8-6. You guys definitely make this list for the day.
Day 2 Preview
Matches in order from top to bottom of draw: I will be short and blunt so I can finish and hopefully start a riot and get mean stares tomorrow from everyone at the tournament.
Wood vs Schommer – Sorry, but Wood is looking good. Played against this kid too many times and I just don’t think Schommer will be able to play big enough to try and stop Wood tomorrow
Macey vs Treacy – Macey had one heck of a day today, but will he be able to do so tomorrow? I know Treacy well. If he goes to bed tonight, he wins. If he throws a huge party (which are sick btw), then he might go down. Connor, be a smarty and put that iPhone down for just tonight!
Lipscomb vs Hudson – Simple and straight here, Lipscomb struggled today and Hudson looked clean. If I hadn’t been there today, I pick Lipscomb 9 out of 10 times but now it might be down to 6 or 7 out of 10. Patrick will need to play his game to get through this one.
Butts vs Nichols – I don’t know if it’s a good thing to talk about my former teammates on this blog or not, so if you are reading this Alex, STOP! Butt’s is a solid solid player but so is Nichols. Well, now let me just pull a little Fall ITA Title out and throw that in there. Oh yeah that’s right, point Butts. He’ll definitely have to work for it.
Yasgoor vs Dorn – Well, you have a D1 Vanderbilt transfer to D3 CMS versus a D3 Pomona-Pitzer Freshman. Does that sum it up for all of you? Yasgoor, love you bud, but Dorn has the edge on you for this one. Bigger, stronger and a bit more experience certainly do the trick.
Thompson vs Konstantinov – Well Konstantinov for the win here. He’s just a solid player who will find his game on the faster courts of Thatcher. If he loses this one I will be surprised.
Littlejohn vs Marino – This again will be a very tough one to pick, but the edge goes to Marino. Yes Littlejohn plays higher up in the line up on his team, but Marino just has that little something. I don’t know what it is Marino, but it’s something. (D3West interlude: that got oddly sexual, and I like it)
Wilson vs Cardenas – This match right here for me is straight forward with Cardenas. No, not because he is my #1 replacement at CLU. He just doesn’t look like a guy who’s about to lose tomorrow. Wilson looks good out there, but I don’t think will have quite enough for tomorrow.
It’s late, I’m tired, here’s Doubles
Wood/Dorn vs Cardenas/Scott
Konstantinov/Schommer vs Morkovine/Yeh
Butts/Kotrappa vs Nichols/Treacy
Littlejohn/Richter vs Bello/Wiechert
That’s your quarterfinals for doubles. Everything in doubles was really relaxed except for a few matches. Littlejohn and Richter taking down Marino and Pereverzin was a good upset for them. The other big upset of the day went to Morkovine and Yeh, taking down Goetz and Scandalis from Cruz. Another CMS upset in the books over the #5 seeds in doubles.
See ya’ll tomorrow! Goodnight
After discussing with some of the players today about whether or not it’s a good thing that the bloggers keep themselves a secret. Doing this is nerve wrecking. Not only trying not to hurt anyone’s feelings with my predictions but to not get people mad at me for thinking what I do. I can ensure you all though, I made these predictions with my thoughts on the players games and match up’s versus each other. It’s a GREAT thing that these guys have their identities hidden from the D3 world.
You and all the D3 bloggers do a GREAT job: insightful, witty, passionate…look forward to your work tomorrow and at nationals next month at CMS….