This Saturday will be the semis and finals of the NEWMAC tournament. The NEWMAC has been a conference long dominated by MIT basically as long as some of our writers have been alive. This year, with Babson losing their top 3 guys to graduation, MIT is probably as a big a favorite as they have ever been. However, we do have an intriguing semis matchup, and Babo/Coast Guard would love nothing more than a chance to pull a monumental upset over the Engineers. Let’s get to the preview.
#4 Springfield (power 6 – 58) @ #1 MIT (power 6 – 73) – Saturday 11:30
Springfield is through to the semis after their 5-1 win over #5 seed Wheaton (MA), as five teams oddly make the NEWMAC tournament. The Pride won this match relatively easily, taking 2 of 3 doubles and rolling at #1, #3, and #4 singles to clinch. They will get a far greater challenge on Saturday as they travel to Cambridge. In their regular season meeting (box score here), Springfield pulled out a match at #1 doubles and matches at #1 and #5 singles, including my POTW Tanner DeVarennes winning in a super over Sean Ko at #1. MIT was sitting their top 3 guys in both singles and doubles, and I don’t really think Springfield has much of a shot, even if they somehow were to sweep doubles. DeVarennes has a solid UTR of 11.49, but the Pride drop off a good bit after that spot. Guessing they only play to decision here from the looks of the first match. I’ll go MIT 5-1, giving Springfield one of the doubles matches as they had a solid doubles performance against Wheaton (MA). Small sample size!
#3 Coast Guard (power 6 – 60) vs. #2 Babson (power 6 – 63) @ MIT – Saturday 11:30
The second semifinal match between Babo and Coast Guard looks like it should be a great one, as Babo took out the Bears 5-4 the first time around. In that match, the Beavers did the classic 2 of 3 doubles and split the singles move, winning at #1, #5, and #6 singles. That match featured four three-setters and two pretty tight straight set matches, so it really was a back and forth affair. Coast Guard has long been the third best team in the NEWMAC and I’m sure they would love nothing more than to make the championship match and get their shot at MIT. Let’s do a match by match look at this one. Babson on the left, Bears on the right.
1S: Alberto De Mendiola (12.22) vs. Tom Hackett (11.12) – Mendiola lost the first set the first
time around and then won 0 and 0 in the next two sets. Hackett is talented but Mendiola is having a great freshman year. Babson 6-4, 6-1
2S: Brandon Rosenbluth (10.78) vs. John Hu (9.92) – Hu won this 6-3 in the third the first time around, which was a bit of a surprise. I think Rosenbluth turns the tables this time and takes it in three. Babson 6-4, 2-6, 6-1
3S: Dan Levitan (10.77) vs. Adam Bahney (9.64) – This match was also a surprise the first time, when Baheny took it in three sets. I see this going 3 sets again, and it not finishing as I think the clinch will happen beforehand. Babson 4-6, 6-4, 2-0 (unfinished)
4S: Ben Roque (10.81) vs. Mike Melampy (10.51) – Melampy won 3 and 5 back in April, and I think he’ll take it again. Coast Guard 7-6, 6-4
5S: Ho Wang Alastair Ng (9.50) vs. Ben Errington (9.41) – This was the most routine of the singles matches in April, as Babson won 4 and 2. I don’t see this changing. Babson 6-3, 6-3
6S: Connor Chin (9.28) vs. Arthur Wicke (8.88) – Chin took this 6-4 in the third in April in an absolute battle. Babo has struggled with its depth a little more this year than they have in the past, and this should be a long one. Coast Guard 6-7, 6-4, 1-0 (unfinished)
I think Babo will take two of the doubles matches and win at #1, #2, and #5 singles for a 5-2 win that is closer than the score indicates.
Championship: Sunday 1:00
This is MIT’s match to lose, as they will have at least a 10 point advantage in their power 6 over whoever they face. MIT took out both Babson and Coast Guard easily in season, by 7-2 and 9-0 scores, respectively, though one of the Babo wins was a retirement at #1 singles and MIT won at #2-5 singles only losing 13 games. Babo probably has the skill to give MIT a little more trouble, but either way, I can’t see MIT losing. Both teams have a strong #1 doubles team, so I’ll give them that match in a 5-1 MIT win.
Quick Individuals Update
In other news, I am now going to ramble for a couple of paragraphs about NCAA individuals. Buckle your seatbelts! Let’s start with New England because it’s a little easier to digest. For New England singles regional selections, it starts and ends with Colby’s Carl Reid and Vlad Murad. Reid has not been playing lately, but he’s currently #5 in the NE ITA rankings, which I know is not the NCAA rankings but provides a good baseline, so he should feel pretty comfortable about his spot. Vlad Murad comes in at #7 after two great wins at #1 over
Luke Tercek (Bowdoin) and Rohan Shastri (Williams). The Mules are out of matches this year, but Murad should also feel relatively comfortable. Nothing would be better for Coach Cohen and two of his seniors than a trip for the both of them to NCAAs. Here’s hoping it happens!
Moving onto NE doubles, none of my regional teams really have a realistic shot. The Babson duo of Alberto De Mendiola and Brandon Rosenbluth come in at #8, but they currently rank two spots ahead of the MIT #1 team, so a win in the NEWMAC finals wouldn’t really help. Brandeis’ Michael Arguello and Ryan Bunis come in at #9, and they recently took out the Tufts #1 team at #7, but it won’t be enough to move them up to the top 4.
Let’s shift to the west, where several of my guys are coming off of the Ojai tournament (results here). Clark Wininger from Pacific had the best result in the singles, where he made the quarters with wins over Dara Kashani (Cal Lu) and Alex Namba (George Fox). Neither of these guys are ranked in the west, so this won’t really help Wininger. Andrew You (Whittier) lost his first match to Chad LeDuff (UCSC), and Spencer Watanabe (George Fox) lost in 3 sets to Josh Gearou (PP), so both guys missed chances to help their NCAA bids. Watanabe, You, and Wininger are probably battling each other for either 1 or 2 spots, depending how that eighth singles spot is allocated, and SCIACs will be a big set of matches for You. If Whittier gets a first round win over Cal Lu, where they should be favored, You will have shots against Parodi and then Chase Lipscomb or Jake Yasgoor, so he is probably in a better spot than Wininger or Watanabe, though he does have to get through Ransom Braaten of Cal Lu on day 1.
Let’s lastly shift down to doubles, where it is all Southwestern as far as my teams are concerned, where they are currently #4 in the latest ITA west doubles rankings. Nickoloz Snovely and Grant Gideon recently lost two incredibly long doubles matches to Tyer/Lambeth from Trin, by scores of 9-7 in the regular season and 9-8 in the SCAC final. The Trin duo is currently #1 in the west, so these results shouldn’t hurt them too much. However, if Simonides/Bello of PP (currently #5) can get some great wins in SCIACs, it will be interesting to see if they jump Southwestern at that spot. Snovely and Gideon have wins over Middlebury, UT-Tyler, and GAC this spring, so they have shown they are a legit team and one deserving of a NCAA bid.
That’s all I have. Lots of tennis happening this weekend with SCIACs, NESCACs, and of course, NEWMACs! And that’s only on the coasts. I feel like a coastal elite when I write about D3 tennis nowadays. Okay, D3Regional out!
Simonides/Bello did pull off another dubs win over Dulle/Ly. Two 8-4 directs over Dulle/Ly, and the direct win over Morko/Gordy should shake up the West dubs rankings and selection.
My bad…. 2nd Simonides/Bello v Dulle/Ly was 8-5
I don’t envy the ranking committee’s job. Simonides/Bello have some great wins, but they also have in-region losses to Caltech and UC Santa Cruz, and they’ve only been playing together for half the year. Dulle/Ly turned around and beat Mork/Parodi in the afternoon.
Especially with the recent doubles lineup change at CMS, my rankings would be:
1. Tyer/Lambeth
2. Dulle/Ly
3. Simonides/Maassen
4. Mork/Gordy
5. Snovely/Gideon
6. Stone/Dugan
Good point on # of matches. Love the reminder to look at more data.
In Spring ITA play Simo/Bello played 18 matches at #1, including 8 top 20 teams, Dulle/Ly played 23, also 8 top 20 teams, and Mork/Gordy had the toughest schedule playing 21, including 10 top 20 teams (and for the curious, Snovely//Gideon played 23, with 2 against top 20 teams, Lambeth/Tyer had 25, 8 against top 20 DIII). If you add the Fall ITA, Simo/Bello and Dulle/Ly both played a total of 23, while Mork/Gorder went through 26.
Don’t know how the directs will factor in, Mork/Gordy 2W & 2L against west top 6, Dulle/Ly were 2&3, Simo/Bello were 3 & 1, though the 1L was against #6.
And, finally if you look at overall W//L % for ITA Spring play Simo/Bello come in at 61.1%, Dulle/Ly at 60.9%, Mork/Gordy at 57.1%, while Lambeth/Tyler were 56%, Snovely/Gideon 72% (least competitive schedule) and Dugan/Stone 50%, though UCSC % is hard to compare as half their matches were outside DIII, including USC, way to go Coach Napoli!
Again, don’t envy the ranking committee, but Bello/Simo weren”t that short of matches and had a schedule similar in challenge to the other top West dubs teams.
BTW, if anyone is curious about SoS (strength of schedule) metrics, Massey Ratings does all the time consuming math for many college sports, including D3 tennis.
For the current top 6 teams in the west dubs, UCSC did indeed have the toughest schedule of the teams mentioned above, #5 for all of D3. The ohers are close behind – CMS (9), Trinity TX (12), PP (14), Redlands (15). SW TX comes in 6th, at a distant #53 for all D3.
As my old boss used to say, “facts are friendly” and coming up with those on my own is too much math for me.
I really appreciate these comments. They provide a lot of substance to my vague notions. I would be interested to see how you would rank these teams
The excessively high regional ranking for Carl Reid is head-scratching. In the same article as the NEWMAC preview, it should be noted that Mendiola beat Reid. Barr and Reid have a common opponent, Ben Rosen. Barr beat Rosen and Rosen beat Reid, both by a score of 3 and 1. Having one good win does not come close to the body of work by at least a dozen other players in the northeast. Grant Urken has the same good win as Reid, also beat Reid, and has more good wins, so why would Reid be ranked ahead of Urken? If the committee looks at the actual records, there is no way that Reid should be “feeling comfortable.”
Mr. Observer, a couple of things need to be said here. 1) While De Mendiola (ADM) beat Reid, he beat him all the way back in September, and, while the committee is not supposed to take this into account, he beat him 16-14 in a super-breaker. 2) If you’re putting a stronger emphasis on spring results, which I believe the committee does, Reid’s only losses are to Rosen and Chua (out of region but still a fine loss), and he has a win over De Quant. ADM has a loss to Bunis and his best win is against Abban (out of region). 3) I think a stronger case could be made for Barr, although his direct loss to ADM does hurt. His win over Rosen should somewhat negate his losses to ADM and Tercek. Plus Barr beat Bunis who beat ADM so there’s the whole endless circle of doom thing. It’s all pretty close. While I do agree that Reid might not deserve to “feel comfortable,” given his current ranking and that he won’t play any more matches I think D3Regional is right and that he can.
What an exciting time of the year! I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but wouldn’t it make sense for the northeast to get all four of the wildcards for individuals? In the last ITA rankings, 5 of the top 10 teams (50%) and 9 of the top 20 teams (45%) are in the northeast. If the committee were to award all four wildcards to the northeast, that would make 11 of 32 players from the northeast (34%), which is still too dang low! The idea of each region getting equivalent number of players is not supported by the fact that the northeast is unquestionably the best region. A wise man once said that it’s not even close.
While I love the comment and agree that the NE should be in line for a couple wildcards, I know a logical fallacy when I see one. Just because 45% of the top 20 teams are from the northeast does not mean that 45% of the best players are from the NE. The NESCAC schools win with depth, but players like Branden Metzler and Brady Anderson have proven that you don’t need to play for a top 20 team to be among the best players in the country.
Getting down to the nitty-gritty of your comment, you believe that the 10th and 11th ranked players in the NE are more deserving than the 8th ranked player from any other region. Personally, I don’t think De Mendiola (NE #10), who beat Carl Ried in the Fall and hasn’t done much sense, or Barr (NE #11), whose big wins are against Bates’ Rosen and De Mendiola himself, are more deserving than say David Liu (self-explanatory), Parker Wilson (wins over Michael Liu, Bunis, Maassen x2), and Chas Mayer (nice win over Lubo Cuba)
Parker Wilson is 0-2 against players ranked in the northeast top 25. He has only one loss in all of his matches within his region. While it is hard to find common opponents across the country, John Larkin (of the Atlantic South) beat Parker Wilson and Larkin lost 6-0 6-0 to Josh Marchalik of Amherst. If you were going to pick between Marchalik (NE number 16) and Wilson, who would you pick? Chas Mayer should be in the top 7 for the west, tons and tons of props for his win over Cuba (resisting another mention of Amherst). Liu is a great player for sure, where has he been? Is he able to play?
With regards to Marchalik, please don’t cherry pick his record. He lost to the UT Tyler #3, and since 4/1 he has won 2 matches — Urken in a TB (great win!, but Urken lost to Whitman #2) and Larkin from Swat. Tons of losses. Look at the record. If you look at all the other records of the NE kids ranked 10 and below, you will see similar stories. Plus for all your NESCAC #2s, remember they are playing 2, not 1. Bottom line is that these comparisons are hard to make. You can always come up with reasons why your guy is better, and so can someone else. Take off your rose colored glasses. I am sure that whomever gets the marginal slots, there will be people who did not make it that will be pissed off. It happens every year.
Why would CMS stay ranked above Southwestern? Why would Pomona jump over them?
Again, I’m not certain about any of this. I put PP ahead of them because they picked up a top 3 regional win, while SW has lost twice (to the #1 regional team) without any big regional wins (but several great out-of-region wins). You could definitely make an argument for SW over CMS, but I kept the Stags ahead based on strength of schedule. No doubles team has been dominant this year, and I think the distance between 2-6 rankings-wise is very small.
“I really appreciate these comments. They provide a lot of substance to my vague notions. I would be interested to see how you would rank these teams”
I should also have said, I don’t envy your role as D3 West. I’ll tread very gingerly into this discussion saying I’m good with numbers, but NOT with politics, and this will most likely come down to some politicking.
My data assumes the universe of options includes the currently ranked top 6 West doubles teams. Within this universe, the math indicates the ranking of the SCIAC teams is straightforward: PP-Simonides/Bello, Redlands-Dulle/Ly and CMS-Morkovine/Gordy. All had very strong schedules. One (PP) beat the other two consistently, and PP has a final W/L % of 61.1, Redlands 60.9% and CMS 57.1%.
As for Lambeth/Tyer, Snovely/Gideon, and Dugan/Stone: Dugan/Stone, at 50% W/L is really an outlier. They are only in the discussion because of their incredible strength of schedule (SoS=5.1) and their direct win over PP. But they lost to Redlands and CMS, and the very weak W/L % really should slate them in at 6.
Similar to the SCIAC guys, it’s clear Lambeth/Tyer and Snovely/Gideon fall in that respective order because of their direct results against each other. Lambeth/Tyer have a relatively low W/L % at 56% and their only direct wins against these other contenders is CMS, which at minimum puts them above CMS. Like the SCIAC teams, they had a high overall SoS, with 8 matches against top 20 teams. They also made it to the finals at Oracle Cup and went 1 – 2 during the season against Emory. It’s less clear to me if they deserve to be just above CMS or at #1, but since they’ve performed consistently well (except for the Linfield match) and because they’ve been West’s #1 all season, leave them there.
As for Snovely/Gideon, they are in a tough position. A W/L of 72% is admirable, but it has to be considered against a SoS of .09 or 53rd in all of D3. Their signature wins (Derbani/Schlanger and Al Houni/Whaling) are against teams that most likely won’t make the cut of Individuals. I’d suggest they deserve a top 4 ranking because they have the highest W/L of the 6 teams, but I think a relatively weak SoS makes it hard to justify moving them higher than teams that played a much tougher schedule. That puts them at #4 or #5. I say #4 in part because they finished the season playing together.
#1 — Lambeth/Tyer
#2 — Simonides/Bello
#3 — Dulle/Ly
#4 — Snovely/Gideon
#5 — Morkovine/Gordy
#6 — Dugan/Stone
Going through this exercise, it’s very interesting how many things are benchmarked by results against CMS-Morkovine/Gordy. Benchmarks are essential, but if the benchmark is off, so are the other placements. Morkovine/Gordy did not finish the season together. The above rankings are what the math suggests between these 6 teams … but I’ll leave the rest to the pros.