Before I get going with the preview, a quick insight. You ever notice how the isolated West region teams tend to only play each other? Trinity, Tyler, Whitman, and Santa Cruz have a total of 3 or 4 non-regional ranked matches this year. The reason for this is the respective coaches are doing their best to get their players into individual nationals, I believe, but it has an interesting consequence. Basically, the teams’ relative rankings are determined by the handful of out-of-region matches played during Spring Break. The best example is UT-Tyler’s incredible 5-4 comeback win over CMU last year. If Tyler doesn’t win that match, CMU finishes around #13 in the country and gets into nationals. Instead, that one loss dropped them 6 spots behind Tyler, Redlands, Whitman, and Pomona (and GAC). The same is true for Pomona’s wins over GAC and Whitewater. Sure, those Central teams might have been better than their ranking, but losing to Pomona gave them indirect losses to everyone in the West. Oops.
It definitely goes both ways, if Pomona had found a way to beat Bowdoin or CMU, the whole West region would’ve benefitted, which might explain why we have such nice regional solidarity (on Twitter, at least) even though some of the team hate each others’ existence. On to the matches.
#12 Whitman vs. #16 Pomona-Pitzer
The rankings is telling me that Whitman is the favorite here, but that’s not what my brain is telling me. Trinity beat both Whitman and Pomona 5-4 on their home courts. Whitman also has a recent history of beating Pomona on a neutral court, but that doesn’t mean they’re about to do it on Pomona’s home court.
Basically, these two teams have a similar makeup: solid doubles, pretty deep, some singles spots stronger than others. The problem for Whitman right now is that they’re not as deep in singles as they ought to be, but that might not actually be the decider in this match. Whitman’s doubles looked really solid over SBWW. It looks like they have three great teams, so I’m going to pick them to pick on the freshman, Bello, and get the win at #1, while getting a relatively dominant win at #3 with Roston/Rivers. The Connors will keep things close with a win at #2.
In singles, Pomona’s depth will be too much for Whitman to handle right now, especially with K. Wei in the lineup. It looks like the Sage Hens were experimenting a bit during the Sage Hen, but he’s a big match player and should be in the lineup. He and Kim should probably win at #5 and #6. All of the matches between 2-4 could go either way. Like, really, I have no idea who’s going to win them. I have even less of an idea of that than I do of why everyone in California is so obsessed with In-N-Out. Regardless, I’ll take La Cava at #2 on experience, and Riggs at #3 because I think the matchup is favorable. I don’t know Maassen’s game, but Roston’s hot streak has to end some time, so I’ll go with the Hens there.
If you’re keeping score at home, you know that makes it 4-4 with #1 singles the only match I haven’t talked about, which brings me to one of the main themes. I wrote about how close Malesovas has been in my SBWW wrap-up, and his team will probably need him to come up with that breakthrough win at some point this week (he also probably needs it for himself because a win over Scandalis isn’t gonna be enough to get him into nationals). Despite Weichert’s struggles in the Stag-Hen, I don’t think it happens here. I’ll take Weichert and the experience for a 5-4 Hens win.
#12 Whitman vs. #21 Whittier
The Battle of Whits has been pretty close the last couple years. In 2012, Whitman won 8-1 with five 3-setters, and in 2013, Whittier surrendered a doubles lead to lose 6-3. Can Whittier close the gap by another two matches to pull out a 5-4 win? I don’t think so.
Before the season started, I wouldn’t have thought this match would be close. I would pick the two teams to split the three doubles matches and the top 3 singles spots, but expect Whitman to pull away at the bottom of the singles ladder. After SBWW, I’m not sure that’s the case. I still think Whitman is favored at the bottom of the singles lineup, but the Squirrels will need a big effort from their 5 and 6 guys to pull it out for the team, as Chavez and Linscott continue to improve for the Poets.
On the other side of the coin, Whittier is basically completely dependent on DK at this point. I don’t think Malesovas is going to pull off the upset at #1 singles (DK is 8-0 this season with a couple DI victories and a nice win over UC San Diego), but a La Cava/Malesovas doubles victory could essentially ice it for the Squirrels. Look for that to be a key swing match. In the end, I think Whittier wins at #1, but Whitman wins at #2 and #3 doubles to take a 2-1 lead. After that, I like La Cava over Schommer at #2, I really like Roston over Shogo at #4, and I have a hard time believing Whitman won’t pick up at least one win between 5 and 6. I’ll take Whitman at 6 for a 5-4 victory.
#12 Whitman vs. #15 Redlands
This is pretty much the same scenario as the Pomona match. I think that these two teams are pretty much even, and that Whitman might win on a neutral court, but Redlands is just too tough on their home courts.
Doubles will be absolutely key in this one, as Whitman will need a doubles lead if they want to keep this thing close. Redlands has been really streaky in doubles so far this year, so I think Whitman with two wins again in this one. Lipscomb really seems to be hitting his stride, so I’ll take Whitman at 2 and 3 again. In singles, Lipscomb and Cummins can basically neutralize Whitman’s strength. I think both of them, especially Cummins, win easy to put Redlands on top 3-2. Suchodolski seems to be solid at #3, so I’ll take him there, and I’ll take Roston with an easy win at #4 for Whitman over Burchett. With Redlands having a 4-3 lead, I think the two teams split the bottom two singles spots, Jones over Jivkov for the clincher. 5-4 Redlands.
There you have it. In case you didn’t notice, I picked Malesovas to go 0-3 on the weekend. If he starts winning matches, I think things change completely for his team. Plus, a win over Scandalis isn’t going to get him into nationals, even if he runs the table against the conference. If all goes according to my prediction, Whitman will finish the regular season with two ranked wins and end up somewhere in the #16-#18 range yet again. If they win all three of these and finish the regular season at #11 or #12. That doesn’t sound like a big deal (especially since we’re talking about a Pool A team), but I think this is a huge weekend for the program because qualifying for Indoor nationals next year would present a huge opportunity for this indoor team.
All three 5-4 matches? The way things are going, why not? So ends my last Spring Break Chronicle of the season. After this we move into SCIAC-Land with the occasional Santa Cruzian interlude, so enjoy these matches while they last.