Players of the Week: 4/11-4/17

NCAA MEN’S REGIONAL PLAYERS OF THE WEEK: April 11th-April 17th

Last weekend was all about the Masters, this past week was all about the culmination of the NBA season, and now it’s time for us to turn our attention to where it really belongs, the stretch run of the DIII tennis season. As always, we are here trying to brighten your Monday with some accolades and praise, recognizing the best of the week that was. If you think that one of your players, teammates, or even the guy across the net deserves a POTW nomination, please email D3AtlanticSouth@gmail.com. We bloggers are human, and can unintentionally overlook deserving candidates from time to time, so feel free to send D3AS your thoughts.

A-SOUTH

Player: Nicholas Garcia

Team: Johns Hopkins

Results: 3-1 doubles and 3-0 singles, including a win at #1 singles against Haverford

Recap: There hasn’t been a lot of great news for the Jays this season, but Garcia had a memorable weekend going 2-0 against Haverford and 2-0 against Mary Washington which was preceded by a doubles loss against Emory and two easy wins against a tricky Franklin & Marshall squad. He even played #1 singles against Haverford. I don’t think Hopkins has lost to UMW in a long time and Mr. Garcia is the biggest reason JHU was even competitive in this match. The doubles win against the Eagles moved Garcia into a tie for 7th in school history with a guy named Tanner Brown. Most of Hopkins’ team hasn’t had great seasons, but as we learned last year, the talent is there and they are potentially dangerous in the post-season if they get hot.

What’s next: NC Wesleyan on Saturday. A must win for the Jays’ confidence against the newly crowned USA South champs.

Honorary Mention: Tyler Chang (VA Wesleyan), Rafe Mosetick (Emory), Jonathan Jemison (Emory) & Sebastian Sikh (NC Wesleyan)

The Warriors 73rd win, Steph’s 400 3’s, or Kobe’s 60 point farewell?: Anything Warriors. I love Kobe and I hope my Kobe rookie card goes up in value exponentially, but the Warriors accomplished something we may never see again with the wins record and the 3s record. Kobe had a great last game, but he took 50 shots and played on a terrible team.

Central

Player: Kevin Brown

Team: Denison

Results: 3-0 singles and 3-0 in doubles

Recap: Let us forget that Denison lost to Wabash because this isn’t about the team, but Kevin Brown had himself a week. He was able to get two doubles wins (with O’Gorman-Bean) over two top ranked teams in the region (Depauw and Wabash) which is enough right there to give him some props. But what is more impressive is he win over Dan Rodefeld from Depauw. I wasn’t there so I can’t speak from first hand experience, but a good source has told me that Brown was puking in between points in the third set and just crushing winners to keep the points short. Rodefeld has had a phenomenal year and fighting for a spot at individual nationals so Brown taking him down playing his third match in 4 days is impressive. This is a rivalry match and Brown came up big.

What’s next: The NCAC tournament. While I don’t know how the seeds will play out, I would think Depauw and Denison will be 2 and 3 which sets up a semi-final rematch.

Honorary Mention: Johnny Wu (Wash U), Jeremy Bush (Wash U), Charlie Pei (Chicago), Brandon Metzler (Kzoo)

The Warriors 73rd win, Steph’s 400 3’s, or Kobe’s 60 point farewell?: Gotta go with Steph. He breaks his own record by over 100 3’s while still shooting 46% and not playing in half of the team’s 4th quarters. Yeah that’s impressive.

NE

Player: Hamid Derbani

Team: Middlebury

Results: 1-0 at #2 doubles, 1-0 at #5 singles.

Recap: There were a ton of deserving NE players this week, and while a guy like Michael Liu probably wins POTW in a normal week (going 6-0 in three matches), the importance/strength of Derbani’s wins give him the nod. In doubles, Derbani and Campbell (who have been up and down for the Panthers) crushed Wolfe/Jiang (the highest ranked #2 team in the region) 8-2. That point kept the Panthers alive, down only 2-1 going into singles. At #5, Hamid brought down the previously undefeated Gil Roddy, and he did so with absolutely no trouble (1&2). The BCS is currently loving Derbani after a couple of huge strength of schedule wins.

What’s next: Midd hosts Amherst on Saturday, and then has a double header against Conn and Nichols on Sunday.

Honorary Mention: Michael Liu (Wesleyan), Palmer Campbell (Middlebury), Aaron Revzin (Amherst), Ben Foran (Stevens), and Matt Heinrich (Stevens).

The Warriors 73rd win, Steph’s 400 3’s, or Kobe’s 60 point farewell?: Kobe’s game was the most fun, and the Warriors hitting 73 may be the record that stands for the longest amount of time, but Steph hitting over 400 3’s in a season is simply preposterous. He broke his own record of something like 286. Only 4 other players have ever hit 250 3’s in a season (one was Klay Thompson this year), and Steph has already done it 4 times himself. But the difference between 286 and 400, obliteration doesn’t even begin to describe it.

WEST

Player: Eliot Guin

Team: Trinity (TX)

Results: 3-1 at #3 doubles and #6 singles against Tyler and Whitman

Recap: Doubles all-American Eliot Guin and Wilson Lambeth have been playing solid doubles all season at the #3 spot, but Guin is earning this POTW award for his singles play. Against Tyler, he and Lambeth salvaged a key doubles point for the Tigers before clinching the match 7-6 in the third in a match that was an absolute war of attrition. By the end, both players were just chipping until they got a chance to come in behind one. Against Whitman, Guin couldn’t replicate his doubles success, but he earned another key singles victory over a fellow serving savant in Whitman’s Jake Hoeger. We don’t often give the lower singles players a lot of love on POTW, but Guin was ready to go in a “next man up” situation and helped salvage his team’s ranking. In retrospect, the win over Whitman might have been huge in the NCAA selection process. If Whitman had leapfrogged them, Trinity could’ve been sent to Claremont with Tyler. Instead, they should get a more favorable NCAA draw.

What’s next: Trinity needs to take care of business in the conference tournament and hope for a good NCAA’s draw.

Honorary Mention: Skyler Butts (CMS) and Adam Rapoport (Whitman)

The Warriors 73rd win, Steph’s 400 3’s, or Kobe’s 60 point farewell?: In terms of entertainment value, I haven’t seen anything as unique and crazy as Kobe going for 60 on 50 shots without really being able to jump and the Staples Center errupting as though they had just won a championship when in reality they just won their 17th game of the season (which is something the Warriors obviously did in their 17th game of the season).

REGIONAL

Player: CJ Antonio

Team: Oglethorpe

Results: 4-0 at #1 singles and #1 doubles

Recap: CJ went 2-0 in a 9-0 team win over Centre, but what I would prefer to focus on was Oglethorpe’s huge upset over #34 Sewanee.  CJ and teammate Rhys Richardson started out by taking out the #1 doubles team in the ASouth, Eric Roddy/Jack Gray, who have been having an awesome season.  Antonio backed this up by taking out Avery Schober, #2 in the ASouth, 6-1 in the third.  From purely a team standpoint, this was a huge conference win against the top team in the SAA, and should give the Petrels confidence going into their conference tournament. Individually, this is a very big win for CJ, who is #8 in the ASouth in singles. This should go a long way towards securing a NCAA berth in his senior year.  Antonio and Richardson are #10 in doubles, so I don’t think they will have the resume to move up to the top 4, but that doubles win was extremely impressive as well. Great weekend for CJ and the Petrels.

What’s next: The Petrels have their conference tournament starting next Friday 4/29. There is currently a three-way tie at the top between the Petrels, Birmingham Southern, and Sewanee.  Sewanee should still be considered the favorite, but Ogelthorpe has to feel good about their chances after the great win.

Honorary Mention: Ford Traff and Rex Glickman (Trinity CT)

The Warriors 73rd win, Steph’s 400 3’s, or Kobe’s 60 point farewell?: The 73rd win.  This was so fun to follow all season.  Can’t believe it came down to the very last game.