Reloading: The ITA West Regional Reportcard

As I stated in my preview, graduation hit California DIII tennis like Kam on Megatron, which left several of my favorite teams with a lot of questions entering the 2015-2016 season. This weekend went a long way towards answering many of those questions, but it also brought up a whole new batch of quandaries. Let’s break it down by team.

CMS

Grade: B+

You're looking at the last three West region ITA champs
You’re looking at the last three West region ITA champs

Any conversation about California tennis has to start with the defending national champs. Many of my readers and colleagues questioned whether or not the Stags could compete for another national championship this season after graduating three of the guys who came to define them for the past three seasons: Wood, Dorn, and Marino. This weekend, CMS answered those fools with a resounding “YES!” The Stags got five players into the quarters of singles (Butts, Mehall, Yeh, Gordy, and Hull), three into the semis, and both finalists. Coach Settles simply has an embarrassment of riches to make his lineup out of. In addition to those five guys, he’s got Alex Brenner (who won the 2nd round consolation draw), Rohan Shankar (who won the 1st round consolation draw), second year Wildman (who lost to Hull in the Round of 16), and returning starters Morkovine and Macey (who didn’t play in the tournament because they are abroad). That’s a lot of raw material to work with.

The only reason their grade isn’t an “A” is because I hold them to a higher standard, and they cannot be happy with letting the doubles title slip through their grasp. Doubles has to be a relative concern for them, as they only managed one semifinalist and three quarterfinalists, so that will be something to work on in the offseason. They clearly have a lot of great players, but they only have one guy (Butts) who has a ton of big match doubles experience. Both Hull and Mehall have seen significant time at #3 dubs, but someone is going to have to come in and win big matches at the top of the lineup. The other big question for them is who is going to play in the middle of the lineup. Butts has proven himself to be one of the best players in the country (if not the best), but nobody else in the lineup has played consistently against the top competition in DIII. I have a feeling Hull will be able to fill in at #2 just fine, but it will be a leap from #6 to #2.

One thing that we here at the blog always look for in a national championship contender is senior experience. An outsider might not think of the Stags as a senior-heavy team, but I would like to point out that Butts, Yeh, Mehall, and Brenner are all seniors who figure to get serious time in the starting lineup this year. I’m particularly optimistic about the great tournament from Lester Yeh. I owe him an apology for questioning his desire on the tennis court. If he can be an anchor at the bottom of the singles lineup for CMS, the Stags are gonna be in great shape.

Pomona-Pitzer

Grade: C-

Coming off a top 5 finish, I know the Hell Hens had high hopes for themselves coming into this tournament, especially after turning the tournament into a glorified dual match last season. Given the seeds, it’s fair to say that Coach Bickham was fairly high on his freshmen, but it’s also fair to say that they didn’t deliver. Sam Gearou was upset by Caltech’s Andre Liu in the first round, Spencer Chiu lost a very winnable first round match against Chapman’s Brett Buford, Parth Desai got smoked by Gordy, and Josh Gearou won a couple tough matches before getting double-bageled by Chase Lipscomb. Ouch. The sophomores didn’t fare much better, going 3-4 in the main draw (though Malech and Chadalavada both won some good matches in the backdraw).

To make matters worse, Pomona-Pitzer doubles performance was frankly terrible by their standard. They didn’t place a single team into the quarterfinals. There’s just not a whole lot to add to that. It was very disappointing for them. The saving grace for the Hens was the play of their upperclassmen. Thomas Low had a nice couple wins, Jon Kim made a run to the quarters of singles, and Jake Yasgoor did Jake Yasgoor things en route to the semis before getting derailed in a great match against Hull in the semis. The great play of the upperclassmen does beg the question, however: where are the rest of them? Maassen, Bello, Simonides, and Josh Kim were all missing from this tournament. Seeing as they’re all juniors, they were presumably abroad. Since Bello, Simonides, and Maassen have all been such stalwarts in the doubles lineup, I’m not as concerned about the Hens as the previous paragraph would lead you to believe, but it’s clear to me that the youth revolution will not define the Hens this season. Instead, Pomona-Pitzer will have to lean on the guys that got it done for them last season, especially in doubles. The big question for them is whether or not those three guys will be ready to play a bunch of big matches right away after a semester of partying (excuse me, studying) abroad.

UC Santa Cruz

Grade: A-

What can you say about Cruz? These Banana Slugs don’t seem to have any idea that the program is supposed to be folding. They’re on their fourth new coach in the last five seasons. They’ve got an absentee coach recruiting for them. Just when you think they’re going to fall off the map, they inexplicably get a lot better. I had been hearing good things out of the Cruz camp, but I was apprehensive until I saw their doubles results against Irvine. In this tournament, Cruz got a couple notable performances from some old faces. Juniors Hollister and Levchenko both won a couple very impressive matches in the main draw. Sophomore Chad Stone won two easy matches before taking a tough loss at the hands of Gordy. The freshmen, Chad LeDuff and Ryan Dugan, showed promise in a win over Redlands’ Dulle and Whittier’s Farmer, respectively (both also advanced in the backdraw before being forced to withdraw by time). Sirovica and senior Jimmy Soper both picked up a couple wins in the backdraw before bowing out themselves. Overall, it’s clear that the Slugs will have plenty of players to choose from in the top 6, and depth will not be a problem.

If that’s all I had to say about Santa Cruz, I would’ve considered the weekend a success, but we haven’t even gotten to the part where they WON THE DOUBLES TITLE. This team clearly demonstrated some doubles prowess when they took the doubles point from Irvine, but Kyle Richter and Adrian Sirovica were an absolute force this weekend. They thrashed a very good doubles team in the first round before gutting their way by a couple P-P youngins in the second. On day two, they lost a grand total of one game against two very good doubles teams before winning the final in two very tough sets. Who knows what it means? Maybe they just played very, very, very good doubles for one weekend and benefited from playing the doubles final indoors, but maybe they are one of the best teams in the country. I give all the credit in the world to senior Kyle Richter, who bounced back from an injury-riddled junior season to garner the all-American honor I know he cherished. (As an incidental note, he will join his former Earlham teammate, Phil Locklear, on the all-American team this year. That’s kinda cool). Before I finish, I should note that Hollister and LeDuffman picked up two impressive wins and came up just two points shy of a semifinal berth themselves.

The big question for Cruz moving forward is whether or not they’ll have the guns to win at the top of the singles lineup. They clearly have the depth and the doubles, but is Chad Stone really going to go out there and beat guys like Yaz and Butts? If not him, then who? The Slugs can’t get complacent with these good results, as they still have a lot to work on in the offseason, but for now, I consider them the third best team in California with a very decent shot at beating P-P come Spring.

If you have the time, please read this very touching press release from the UC Santa Cruz website documenting their incredible achievement.

Redlands

Grade: B-

If I could summarize Redlands’ tournament in one word, it would be “meh.” They had their moments, like when Joey Dulle and Bryant Johnson served their way to the semifinals of doubles, and I can’t pretend it wasn’t nice seeing the name Lipscomb (Chase) in the quarterfinals of the singles draw, but it wasn’t an especially great tournament for Redlands. Other than the one doubles semifinals team, they didn’t do particularly well in doubles, notching a grand total of two wins between their other four doubles teams in both the main and backdraws. Other than Lipscomb, their freshmen weren’t particularly impressive with some going out in the first round and others in the second. Sawyer PattersonMichael Alder, and Dulle all won backdraw matches, but none of their wins were all that great. There’s really no other way to say it. The tournament was “meh,” and these kiddos have a lot to work on if they’re hoping to make the tournament through Pool C this season. It’s far more likely that they’ll be building for the future with this talented but raw class.

Cal Lu

Grade: B+

I’m getting very tired, so I apologize that the rest of you teams won’t get the attention you deserve. Simply put, the Kingsmen had a surprisingly good tournament. Ian Slater won a couple matches in both singles and doubles. Gio Valdez took a set off Gordy. They got a surprise 3-star recruit in Amirardalan Safi who picked up two nice wins before going down to Yaz. Jesse Knight picked up a couple backdraw wins and teamed with Slater to make the doubles semis. The Kingsmen also competed pretty well in their other doubles matches. The big question for them will be depth. After those four guys and Lunding-Johansson they don’t really have anyone with any results to speak of. They will definitely be missing Fergus Scott, and they will need Gennette to pull off some magic if they want to stay ahead of Chapman and stay competitive with Redlands.

Chapman

Grade: B+

Speaking of Chapman, I would be remiss not to mention the Panthers in the recap. Chapman showed surprising depth in singles play and capped off their solid tournament by landing a doubles team in the semifinals for the first time in recent memory! That team of Brett Buford and Charlie Werman beat three very solid doubles teams before falling to Butts/Hull. Bufford, Mitteldorf and da Silva all won main draw singles matches. Werman had a nice run in the backdraw. All of this was without the services of Justin (“The Lawfirm”) Thompson who was gone for unknown reasons. If they can get him back, they will certainly challenge Cal Lu and could even give Redlands some trouble if the Bulldogs can’t get their freshmen going this season. It will be a good season to keep an eye on the Panthers.

Caltech

Grade: P

I don’t want to freak out the Beavers by giving them grades, but I do want to give a shoutout to my most active twitter followers. I could easily see Caltech crawling out of the SCIAC basement this season after Andre Liu scored his big first-round upset over Gearou. The rest of the Beavers didn’t do much damage, but they were more competitive than they’ve been in past seasons. I wish them the best.

4 thoughts on “Reloading: The ITA West Regional Reportcard

  1. Staggie

    Check the quarterfinal singles. Slight correction on the Stags that made it through.

    1. D3West

      I sure did make a mistake, and it’s now been corrected. I appreciate the help and your readership

  2. Ben S

    “If you have the time” for the UCSC press release. Ha! Well played…

  3. Whittier Fan

    It seems in my opinion with the absense of Belleto Quinn has a lot of work to do. Although Whittier did seem to have a better recruiting class than last year. They did have a player push the #4 seed to three sets.

Leave a Comment