West/Southwest/Northwest ITA Regional Recap

Things always get steamy on the second day of ITAs. There’s always good tennis on the final day, but on the second day, teammates start squaring off, and there are just so many good matches that you can get whiplash (or, in my case, carpal tunnel) trying to keep up with them. As always, I’ll start with the West regional before y’all get bored.

West

Singles

This really turned out to be an interesting draw. The top half: no CMS players in the quarters. The bottom half: all CMS players in the quarters. It turned out that Wood’s early round struggles were more indicative of general sub-par form than lack of focus, as Yasgoor, the P-P freshman, routined him in the octofinals. Not trying to take anything away from Yasgoor; he’s clearly a phenomenal player, but Wood shouldn’t be losing that badly to anyone. Sometimes it’s just not your week.

One of my Darkhorses is still alive in Cardenas. He was never really a Darkhorse as the #4 seed, but someone I totally overlooked was Whitter’s David Konstantinov. Konstantinov got some luck on his way to the quarters with a default, but there was no luck involved in his 3-set win over Yasgoor to earn a semifinal berth. As we speak, he and Cardenas are squaring off in the semis.

My other Darkhorse, Cameron Bernhardt couldn’t work his way by teammate Skyler Butts in the octos, falling in a 3-set battle. Meanwhile, Stag freshman Morkovine took out P-P #1 Weichert in the opposite octofinal, setting up a battle of teammates. Butts kept cruising, but he’ll have a tall task in the semis against Dorn, who has only dropped 11 games in four matches on his way to the semis. The Vandy transfer has easily looked the stongest so far, but it only takes one match to get knocked out of the tournament (Duh).

Doubles

The bigger surprises of the tournament, however, came in doubles. They always seem to. To start things off, Bello/Weichert of P-P took out the top-seeded reigning champs, but immediately fell to Nichols/Treacy in the semifinals.

The Kingsmen duo were phenomenal last year, but I definitely didn’t see them making the finals of this thing. At least they were the #4 seeds, on the bottom half, the completely unheralded duo of Littlejohn and Deguchi earned their finals berth by taking out the #3 and #2 seeds in succession (Cardenas/Scott from CLU and Konstantinov/Schommer from Whittier, respectively). So much for Cruz having a dead doubles tradition. No matter how things end up in the final, there will be a non-CMS representative from California in Florida this year.

Southwest

Singles

Charlie Curtis is alive in both singles and doubles for TU
Charlie Curtis is alive in both singles and doubles for TU

I can’t even really describe how typical the results of this regional are. Once teammates start playing each other, all bets are off. Young players start reaping the fruit of their summer labors, while older players deal with the pressure applied by the number in parentheses next to their name. Regardless, Trinity ended up monopolizing the semifinals, and it seems as though they have a bright future ahead of them.

Sophomore transfer Paxton Deuel dropped just 9 games en route to the semis, including an impressive 2 and 0 victory over Martinez in the quarters (so much for matches to watch); Sophomore Connor Dunn beat the reigning ITA national champion in straights; and junior Charlie Curtis battled by a couple feisty Patriots to accompany his teammates in the semis. All those guys, plus Skinner, will be around for a couple more years, so watch out! Rounding out the semifinals is the senior Greg Haugen, who beat some players I’m not familiar with to get there. I would love to see the senior take it, but Deuel is gonna be a hike up in competition from his first four rounds.

Doubles

Trinity also dominated on the doubles court. The only major surprise was Guin/Thompson taking out 2nd-seeded teammates Haugen/Dunn, but it’s a gosh darn proset, so how can any result be all that surprising. They will be taking on the unseeded duo of Curtis and Mayer who are relentlessly and tirelessly trying to make me look like a prophet. On the top half, you’ve got Moreno/Skinner vs. the newcomers Niess/Deuel. Looks like they’re on a rain delay right now, and I would guess indoor tennis would favor the Northwesterner on the last day of competition.

Northwest

They play a Monday final in the Northwest, so this was really just day 1. As expected, Whitman placed 9 into the round of 16 (though things don’t appear to be going all that swimmingly for them so far this morning), and 4 in the quarterfinals. The only major surprise of the day was Whitman senior Will Huskey taking out the defending champ, Malesovas, in the 2nd round. Like Trinity, once teammates start playing each other, all bets are off.

Things will get juicy today, so I’ll just stop here.

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