NCAA MEN’S REGIONAL PLAYERS OF THE WEEK: April 6th-April 12th
I gotta give it to D3Central, The Masters is just awesome, plain and simple. Between the golf and the 19 innings of Sox/Yanks on Friday night, i barely had time to do anything this weekend; but, it got me thinking about sports heroes. Mookie Betts hitting a sac fly that scored Xander Bogaerts, it’s a new era in Redsox baseball. Jordan Speith making a mockery of the most famous golf course in the entire country, perhaps ushering in a new era of golf. All of this goes to show how much we love our sports heroes, and that is the theme of the POTW. This week, our writers will be sharing who they used to look up to, and which young professional athletes now garner their respect.
A-SOUTH
Player: Christian Heaney-Secord
Team: Carnegie Mellon University
Results: 2-0 in Doubles, 2-0 in Singles
Recap: “Good Chris” showed up this weekend in a very successful weekend for the Tartans. Going up against the best competition at #1 doubles and #2 singles, him and partner Will Duncan took out Carey/Charles of UMW and Joachim/Dubin of JHU. Both wins earned them key regional wins and they are basically a lock for the tournament in doubles. Additionally, Christian broke out of his singles slump by taking out two very solid players in close matches, Gilmore of UMW and Dubin of JHU. The Tartans need more of this version of Heaney-Secord if they are to try and reach their potential.
What’s next: The UAA Tournament in two weeks.
Honorable Mention: Rafe Mosetick, Emory, CJ Antonio, Oglethorpe
DIII Tennis Player, past or present, whose game you most envy: I was going to pick Brian Pybas here but it looks like West took it. I’m going to go with another Cruz player – Andre Halabi. He represents the DIII dream. Ugly strokes (Sorry Andre!) but the mentality of a champion and it showed.
CENTRAL
Player: Nicolas Chua and David Liu
Team: Chicago
Results: Both were 3-0 in singles and 3-0 in doubles together
Recap: Yes Chicago came up short once again against a vulnerable Wash U team, but both Chua and Liu came up with the goods this weekend to proper Chicago into a solid showing. Chua steamrolled Carswell, Humphreys, and Budd at the top singles spot without much fuss. Liu also had a relatively easy weekend winning at #6 against Wash U, #4 against Whitewater, and #2 against Texas Tyler. If that doesn’t tell you how deep Chicago is, then you are blind. Chicago sat 4 guys in singles and still took care of a top 20 team. As a doubles duo, the pair don’t look all that intimidating, but at #3 are one of the better teams in the country. This is a relatively new pairing as Liu was playing with Sabada, but with Chua they hit the ground running.
What’s next: An extremely dangerous Gustavus team is this coming weekend. As long as Chicago doesn’t get swept in doubles, they will be fine and taking a 2-1 lead over Wash U shows that they can hang with most doubles teams.
Honorable Mention: Johnny Wu (Wash U), Jason Haugen (Wash U), Patrick Farrell (Depauw)
DIII Tennis Player, past or present, whose game you most envy: John Watts
New generation professional athlete whom you love: Jordan Speith
NE
Player: Ari Smolyar
Team: Middlebury
Results: 3-0 at #1 singles, and 3-0 at #2 doubles
Recap: Ari just keeps on keepin on. Perhaps that’s why #therecanonlybeone. Very curious to know where that comes from, but its a pretty dope hashtag. The region’s #1 player beat Raventos (Williams) in straight sets, Telkedzhiev (Tufts) in a super, and Ruderman (Emory) 4&2! That in and of itself is a heck of a week, but Ari also teamed with freshman Noah Farrell to go 3-0 at #2 dubs vs. the same teams. 6-0 in a crucial Pool-C week give Smolyar the nod for POTW over some very worthy honorable mentions.
What’s next: No rest for the weary. Midd travels up to Maine to take on Bowdoin and Bates on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
Honorable Mention: Andrew Yaraghi (Amherst), Anton Zykov (Amherst), William De Quant (Middlebury), Rohan Gupte (Tufts)
DIII Tennis Player, past or present, whose game you most envy: Andy Peters (Middlebury). Silky smooth, and too solid from both sides. Plus there was the legendary mustache…
New generation of professional athlete whom you love: Steph Curry. Best combination ball handler and shooter the world has ever seen.
WEST
Player: Joey Dulle and Patrick Lipscomb
Team: Redlands
Results: Dulle went 4-0 in singles and doubles against Cal Lu and P-P. Lipscomb went 3-1.
Recap: I was having a tough time choosing between these two, so I just decided not to. Redlands got their first big win since their 5-4 nailbiter against Wesleyan this week, and it came at the 11th hour for them. After a losing string of do-or-die-ish matches, their post-season hopes would have been officially buried with a loss to the #3 Sagehens. Dulle teamed with Ly to beat one of the best #3 doubles teams in the country in Bello/Simonides and backed it up with a convincing straight-sets win over Josh Kim. Lipscomb shook some of his bad big-match juju and came huge for the Dawgs in a 7-6 third set win over Chuddy to clinch a 5-4 victory against P-P. He also won a 10-pointer over Cardenas this week to cement his regional ranking.
What’s next: Redlands plays Whittier next week followed by THE OJAI
Honorable Mention: Graham Maassen (P-P), Frankie Fischer (UT-T)
DIII Tennis Player, past or present, whose game you most envy: Brian Pybas (Made it to the semifinals of nationals with an injured right wrist. Pretty good)
New generation professional athlete whom you love: Tomas Hertl
REGIONAL
Player: Michael Arguello
Team: Brandeis University
Results: 2-0 at #2 singles, 1-1 at #1 doubles
Recap: Arguello has had a great year from the #2 singles spot, getting wins over Noah Farrell (Midd), Ben Foran (Stevens), Chris Ellis (Bates), Ben Battle (Tufts), Victor Vu (Babson), and most recently, Musyoka Mbithi (Trinity CT). This past week, he went 2-0 in a dominating match for Brandeis over rival Babson. Even though he lost at #1 doubles yesterday to Trinity CT, he came back and got a great win in singles over Moose. Arguello had an up-and-down freshman year, starting the season at #1 but eventually moving down to #2 behind Brian Granoff. He seems to have taken a big step forward in his sophomore season, with a total record of 9-4, which is very good considering the Judges play a difficult schedule. The Judges seem in line for the #6 seed in UAA’s, assuming they defeat NYU next weekend, and if the Judges are to have any shot at a first round upset, they will need two wins from Arguello.
What’s Next: The Judges head to Cambridge on Wednesday to take on MIT, and then finish up their regular season with a home match against NYU, a big match for UAA seeding. The UAA tournament is the following weekend.
Honorable Mention: McKinley Grimes (RPI), Grayson Frazier (Pacific)
DIII Tennis Player, past or present, whose game you most envy: Dillon Pottish from Emory, the guy grinded like no other. Also Mark Kahan from Amherst.
New Generation athlete: Frank Kaminsky…man I really hope this guy is a good NBA player.
What about Eric Butorac, a DIII singles/doubles champ whom I later saw playing dubs at the U.S. Open. Most successful DIII player ever?
Definitely the most successful in terms of post-grad career, but I don’t think you can argue that his collegiate career was as great as Seeburgers
Apparently Michael Arguello was 5-14 last year. Not up and down. Mostly down
Andy Peters definitely a great call. Guy also won a marathon right after graduating from Midd. Legendary stuff. I love the shout outs to former d3 players. Keep up the good work on the blog.
But what a great turnaround for Arguello. The moose man just wasn’t ready for him #trin
The fact no one said Matt Seeberger for past favorite d3 player is a mockery. Guy had a triple crown (team, singles, doubles in the same year), included another singles and doubles title. Read a book.
He actually won the Triple Crown twice and added a third singles national championship and a third national doubles championship (3 different partners), but good luck challenging the bloggers on DIII tennis knowledge (a very worthwhile thing to use our brain space on, I’m sure you would agree). Just because he was the greatest doesn’t mean he has to be our favorite. My favorite hockey player is Patrick Roy. My favorite tennis player is Andre Agassi. My favorite NFL player is Steve Smith. I like my heroes brilliant but flawed.
fa·vor·ite
adjective
1. preferred before all others of the same kind.
“their favorite Italian restaurant”
synonyms: best-loved, most-liked, favored, dearest
D3NE likes this comment
http://www.hawaiiathletics.com/roster.aspx?path=mten&rp_id=4441
Not according to this D3 west. So like I said read a book.
Consider the book read.
http://www.goslugs.com/sports/mten/mtenhistory
Don’t believe everything you see on the internet.
In case you don’t want to read the whole book and just want the paragraph. I know reading is tough. Added bold for you as well.
“In 2005 he did it all by leading the team to the NCAA Team Championship and then won the NCAA singles title and the doubles championship with partner Matt Brunner to cap a triple crown at home. In 2006 Matt won the Fall ITA Small College National Singles Championship and his second NCAA National Doubles Championship with partner Shane Templeman. In 2007 Seeberger turned the record book upside down by claiming his second triple crown. After winning the team title he won his third singles NCAA Singles Championship and then won his third NCAA National Doubles Championship with partner Max Ortiz. “
This is amazing. Not only are you just blatantly wrong, but you were also a jerk about your wrongness from the start making you look like even more of an idiot than you would have if you were just wrong.
Everyone with any history in D3 knows what Seeburger did, and you continue to flaunt your ignorance.
Also, the Internet doesn’t count as a book.
Use your brain
This has my vote for worst comment/series of comments of the year. And that’s saying something.
Seeberger is clearly the greatest D3 tennis player of all time as Steve Johnson may be the greatest D1 player of all time. This is based on their collegiate records. It clearly does not correlate to their post collegiate careers. I am not sure why this got so snarky…Snarkiest since the discussion about Case’s behavior at StagHen and not nearly as important…kind of discussion one should have over a beer with some tennis friends.