Cal Lutheran, just minutes ago, went on the road and beat Pomona-Pitzer 5-4 in an upset that I never saw coming. Credit to d3tennisguy for getting this one right on the money. The Kingsmen were a point away from being swept in doubles, but battled back to win 4 lines in singles and win a dramatic battle. This is the 2nd time in as many weeks that P-P has had a 2-0 lead with chances to win the 3rd doubles match and ended up losing both the 3rd doubles match and the overall match. I didn’t think of Cal Lu as a serious contender before the season, but it seems as though I was wrong about that. Let’s take a look at what this match means on the national scene, particularly since both of these schools play in the SCIAC, a conference that most think will be won comfortably by CMS for the 7th or 8th consecutive year.
At the moment, and teams may be added to this list and removed as the weeks go by, we have 11 legitimate contenders for 6 Pool C spots. 4 NESCAC teams, 4 UAA teams and 3 SCIAC teams. There is a lot of tennis left to be played so the rankings are fairly irrelevant at this moment in time, however, every match for every one of these teams and the score of the match, is potentially huge.
We have: Williams, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Trinity (CT), Wash U, Carnegie Mellon, Case Western, Chicago, Cal Lutheran, Pomona-Pitzer and Redlands. Chicago is a distant 11th right now, however I am not counting them out because they have 3 opportunities left on their schedule in addition to the UAA tournament, which I consider winnable matches for a team as talented as Chicago. The Maroons play #5 NC Wesleyan in a few weeks and also have matches against Case and Wash U in April. If they can win 2 of those 3 matches, that could offset losses to Gustavus and Whitewater and get them back in the discussion for a Pool C bid. Trinity (CT) who hasn’t started their season yet, has a golden opportunity in the first match of the season against 8th ranked Whitman, who is beatable. The Bantams also have a shot against Bowdoin and Cal Lutheran, and despite Trinity (CT)’s youth, I consider all 3 of those winnable matches.
The rest of the teams play each other for the most part, and they will all play enough matches to separate the contenders from the pretenders. I have yet to see a huge gap between about 4 and 20 in the rankings, which means no one is safe. Every one of these teams has to battle for their tournament lives every time they step on the court and every point could be critical when NCAA selection time comes. Obviously some teams have a leg up on other teams due to results that have already happened, but everyone is going to have a fair chance to prove they are worthy of one of the those 6 precious Pool C spots. It’s a shame that it has to be done this way as I’ve always said, but it certainly makes for a lot of drama over the next 8 weeks.
People are exaggerating the downfall of Pomona a little bit here. Remember they still had a match point at the 1 doubles that was a sitter that Meyer whiffed on. Certainly a huge momentum swing both in Pomona feeling something was against them and giving Cal Lu the fire to believe that the day was theirs which they certainly took into singles. Also remember the match came down to a player that never plays in the Pomona lineup due to Singh being out and this match really showed that they have a drop off after their six player as. A ton of credit goes to Cal Lu as they believed in themselves and dug out of a doubles hole and had a great singles performance. They deserve the win no question. At the same time to say Pomona is done I have a hard time believing.
As I said before I think the big things to take out of this match are that Cal Lu is a lot better than anyone expected and that Pomona isn’t as deep as people may have thought coming into the season. Lots of tennis left and it should be interesting to see all the SCIAC teams beat up on each other as I think its entirely possible that they all end up splitting both in regular season if Redlands beat Cal Lu and then Pomona beat Redlands as well as in SCIACS. If this were to happen would SCIAC still get 2 into regionals or would it benefit an extra NESCAC team? In a season started with Whitman upsetting Cruz we should’ve known it would only be the start of the fun.
I don’t think anyone saying there’s a downfall – just that they’re in a tough spot. It’s still early in the season, but they really haven’t done themselves any favors in terms of Pool C. You do have to admire their fight in every match, though.
If they all went 1-1 against each other in the regular season, it could get really weird. Tiebreakers would determine who was 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in the SCIAC. The 4th place team would likely lose to CMS in the SCIAC tournament semifinals, and the winner of the other semifinal would probably get the Pool C bid. Like I said before, the only way the SCIAC gets two teams in Pool C is if they do really well against the NESCAC and UAA teams over spring break. Last year, the NESCAC got 3 in Pool C (Williams, Middlebury, Bowdoin), the UAA got 2 in (Wash U, Chicago), and the SCIAC got 1 (Pomona-Pitzer). The SCIAC teams have to actually win matches to change the status quo.
Pomona is a good team that maximized their potential last year. That is hard to do every year. Redlands and Cal Lu improved significantly while Pomona stayed about the same. That is going to make it tough on Pomona. This year, Whitman is doing what Pomona did last year – playing at the top of their games and surprising people.
Whitman caught people by surprise. Yes, but they would have a very very rude awakening and will be beaten over and over this year. Except that there schedule is about as weak as a they come. If they were to match up against more teams who are actually ranked in the top 20 such as Emory, Cal Lu, Redlands, Amherst, Williams. They might gain a little bit of respect. Cruz just proved that that loss to whitman was a huge fluke.
I have read Emory Is best in southeast D3. What about Washington and lee and Oglethorpe? (a very high level liberals arts Atlanta college). Also Rhodes in Memphis – these southern colleges possess talent
WashLee has disappointed so far, but they will easily win the ODAC. Oglethorpe graduated their top two, and three and five are ineligible this spring. Their regional pre season ranking was based on last year? They were beaten 8-1 at home two weeks ago by an improving Methodist Univ team. Methodist also beat D2 regionaly ranked Queens Univ. Methodist is stuck in the USAS with NC Wes, Christopher Newport and Averett.
Things have to go pretty perfectly for 3 SCIAC teams to get into the tournament. Basically, the west coast teams would have to win all of their matches against the NESCAC teams, which is pretty unlikely. P-P has a ton of chances, so there’s no reason to freak out for them, but they do have to play the rest of their season with an elevated sense of urgency. I think they really suffered from the absence of Singh in singles.
Right now, the Pool C picture is really cloudy, and there’s not much point in trying to take an extended look at it until the results start pouring in during the next couple weeks
Still, Pomona has plenty of chances left. Stag-Hen will be big, as will their matches against Herst and Midd, but if they can find a way to finish #2 in SCIAC, they’ll be fine
This is going to be a crazy year in the battle for SCIAC #2. I wonder if there’s any chance SCIAC can get three teams in the tourney. Probably unlikely since the NCAA is unwilling to ship them out of SoCal. Still, CLU, PP, and Redlands all have many chances to show they belong in the tournament.
Things look especially tough for Pomona, because even if they beat Redlands, they’ve lost to CLU. Also, they get second chances against Trinity (TX) and Kenyon – winnable matches against teams that will probably be top 10 at season’s end – but even if they manage to win one or both, could the rankings committee really put PP above either given their earlier losses at Indoors and after losing to CLU? A lot to still be decided, but things don’t look great for Pomona unless they manage to get some big wins (Amherst, Midd, and especially CMS).
Pomona’s Meyer missed an overhead on match point to give the hen’s a 3-0 lead in doubles.
Shouldn’t have missed it. Heard Ballou just destroyed him until 6-0 5-2 and fell apart a little but secured it in the end.