2014 Season Preview: Wesleyan

Welcome to team preview season! D3 West and the newly anointed D3 Central have gotten the team previews rolling, and now it’s my turn. I’ll be doing a team preview for the top 10 teams in the Northeast rankings (in no particular order) and hopefully getting a preview out almost every week. While the winter off season may not be quite as exciting as the fall ITAs or spring dual matches, it is just as important as teams seek to improve without their coaches and come out strong in the spring. Whether it’s in the weight room, captain’s practices, USTA tournaments, or just getting ahead on school work, the off season plays a huge role in a team’s quest for a championship.  You might say, “silly D3 Northeast, that can’t possibly be true.” To those naysayers, I merely wag my finger and say that while it is true that a team cannot win a championship in the winter, they can certainly lose one. But, enough Mr. Miyagi philosophy for now, grasshoppers. Put your hands together for the Wesleyan Cardinals!

Head Coach: Mike Fried (1^st season as Faculty Head Coach, 4^th with the team)

2011 Regional Ranking: 20^th

2012 Regional Ranking: 19^th

2013 Regional Ranking: 9^th

2014 Projected Regional Ranking: 7^th

2014 Projected National Ranking: 22^nd

Overview:

Let’s give a warm welcome to the national conversation to the Red Birds from Middletown, Connecticut! This is a team that, until last year, has not been in the NESCAC discussion for a long time. As the #5 seed at NESCACs last year, the Cardinals were tied at 3-3 with 3 3^rd sets still going before they eventually lost a heartbreaker 5-3 to Bates in the 1^st round of the conference tournament. They achieved what might have been their first ever national ranking (26^th) in May of last year but somehow lost the ranking when the year end rankings came out after nationals. I don’t know how this happened, because between May 2^nd and June 6^th the Cards only losses were to Bates, who was ranked ahead of them. This team has been on the up and up for the past couple seasons now, and many DIII tennis pundits are forecasting the Cards to be one of the surprise teams of the 2014 season.

Key Additions: Cameron Hicks, Jake Roberts, Michael Liu, Greg Lyon, Steven Milo (asst. coach)

Key Losses: Jeff Legunn, Mike Glenn (both graduated)

The losses of 2013 seniors Legunn and Glenn should be mitigated by the 7^th best recruiting class according to tennis recruiting. Coach Fried’s freshman class includes Roberts and Lyon, both 4-stars, as well as 3-stars Hicks and Liu. Legunn, especially, will be a big loss for the Cards and Coach Fried will be looking to freshman to play big roles in a young and exciting lineup. Legunn played as high as #1 for this team a few years back and was an anchor at #4 last season. Glenn was a senior captain, though he didn’t play in many big matches for the Cards. However important the senior captains were to last year’s Cardinals team, the talent of the freshmen class and the continued improvement of this team should help ease Coach Fried’s grief. Here is what their lineup has looked like this fall.

            #1 Jake Roberts, freshman. Roberts has beaten Micheli and lost to Brantner Jones and Luke Trinka this fall. That could easily be matches against the #1’s for Williams, Midd, and Bowdoin. If Roberts contends this well come spring time (winning a total of 3 sets against those 3 guys) then Wesleyan could be looking at a higher projected ranking than the one above.

            #2 Michael King, sophomore. King has had a great fall, taking out Allen Jackson (who some people think will play high in Midd’s lineup this year, though those people are slightly delusional), Rohan Shastri, and winning a round at ITAs before bowing out to Palmer Campbell in the round of 32. He played #3 against Williams, and then played #2 against Hartford. However, whether King plays #2 or #3, this could be a tough spot for Wesleyan. While beating Jackson and Shastri is a great sign, neither of them are #2’s. Last year King had 2 wins all year at #2, though his results did get consistently better through the spring. Unless King comes out of the winter a new man, I’m not sure he’ll be able to hang with the likes of Yaraghi, Johnston, Lil’ Weiss, Bragg, and the other #2’s at the top of the NESCAC.

            #3 Sam Rudovsky, sophomore. Rudovsky had a very good year at #3 last season, losing only to Lunghino (regular season) and Berg (NESCACs), while beating the likes of DeBracamonte, Lee, Glickman, and Berg during the regular season. This fall, Sam beat Miles Ransom at the Middlebury Invitational before falling in a super to Frons. With his continued improvement and grinding style of play, I believe Rudovsky will win many of his matches at #3 but still struggle against the NESCAC teams ranked ahead of the Cards. However, if he can steal a match or two from the likes of Campbell, Harron, Fife, or Lord, the Cards will have a chance to pull a major upset.

            #4 Stephen Monk, junior-captain. Monk is taking a similar track to that of Legunn. He played #1 for the Cards for most of last season, was slotted at #2 before getting destroyed by Lil’ Weiss earlier this fall, and has worked his way down to #4. Let me tell you though, if Mr. Monk is playing #4, this team will get a lot of wins at #4. Though Monk did not win many matches at #1 last year, his solid play will undoubtedly fare better a little lower in the lineup. I see Monk taking almost every #4 match he plays against teams not names Midd, Amherst, or Williams. I also believe Monk will be able to win at least one match against one of the top 3 NESCAC schools.

            #5 Michael Liu, freshman.  All Liu did this fall was win the C-Flight at Middlebury knocking off Panthers like Lebovitz and Smolyar along the way. He also beat Chris Dale in straight sets at ITAs before losing 5&5 to Johnston. Though he did lose to Astrachan in their fall dual match, I believe that Liu has the potential to make this season special for Wesleyan. If he, and his bottom of the lineup freshman counterpart, can take care of business, Wesleyan has the potential to (gasp) make NCAA’s.

            #6 Greg Lyon, freshman. Lyon won the D-Flight at Middlebury early this fall, and had a close straight set loss against Schidlovsky. Greg is a 4-star California boy, so we know he has the potential to do great things. For now he’s in at #6, but he could definitely work his way up the Cardinal’s lineup come springtime. Let’s hope the freshman continue to push each other, as the Cardinals are poised to have their best season ever.

I’m not going to get into predicting doubles teams for the spring, but I will look at a couple of recent results. Although Wesleyan’s doubles was not their strong suit at the end last year (they went down 3-0 to Bates in consecutive matches), it was certainly not a true weakness as they managed to take leads against Tufts, Trinity, and Middlebury after dubs. However, the Cards didn’t play strong doubles this fall, only beating one team that will likely start for a NESCAC top 6 team (Bates #2). Nevertheless, this team is so deep in singles that as long as they can reliably find a point somewhere within their doubles lineup, they should still be able to beat any team not in the NESCAC top 4; however, to beat a team like Midd, Herst, Williams, or Bowdoin, Wesleyan will likely need to be up 2-1 after dubs.

Schedule analysis

Though their schedule is not listed on their website, here are the matches that that ITA website says they will be played this spring: Hamilton, @Conn, @Tufts, @Colby, Trinity, Midd, @Amherst, Bates. It seems Wesleyan has gone the route of DI Football and scheduled a couple easier matches before they get into the meat of their schedule. The Cardinals should have no problem with Hamilton or Conn, and I believe they will beat a Tufts team that is being overlooked 5-4. Their schedule gets tough with Midd, Amherst, and Bates at the tail-end of their season. I know there is a lot of buzz about this Cardinals team (and some of it has come from me), but I just don’t see them actually beating Midd or Herst yet. They might play them close, but as my grandfather says, “close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”  However, I believe they will extract their revenge on the Bobcats at the end of their season and will go into the NESCAC tournament as the #5 seed again. Here’s where it gets interesting though as I don’t know if Bowdoin and Wesleyan are playing during the year. Either way, I think this is a winnable match for both teams, and one of them will win it 5-4 to advance to the NESCAC semis.

In my mind the keys to this team will be the freshman. If Roberts, Liu, and Lyon can all continue to progress and push each other, then this team has the ability to be more than just a #5 or #6 seed at NESCACs. While I know Coach Fried and his boys want to win now, their progress over the past couple years has been monumental, and they should just continue to get better. The Cards will not graduate a single person this year, and they already have a 3-star committed for next year. With one more year of development and another strong freshman class, this team will not only push the NESCAC elite, but also start to beat them. Look out for Wesleyan in 2014 as this is the last year they will be a surprise, but it’ll be 2016 and possibly even 2017 before Coach Fried might be able to contend for a national championship.