In a season full of crazy happenings, things just got crazier. This is by far the craziest of all of the crazy things. It’s like in the NCAA tournament when everyone gets all excited about a 12 seed beating a 5, and then a 15 beats a 2 later that night.
CMS fans might try to justify this by saying Lane wasn’t playing, but that doesn’t matter. You can’t lose to Swarthmore after sweeping doubles. You just can’t. Wood, Johnson, Erani, and Cahill are all legitimate starters, and they all lost. Kotrappa and Pereverzin have either played in the starting singles lineup before or have starting potential. With or without Lane, this upset is incredible. Whoever posted yesterday that Swarthmore could hang with anyone in singles turned out to be a freaking prophet because Claremont falls on the top end of that “anyone” category. If they can figure out some good doubles teams, they could be legitimately dangerous.
Rankings-wise, this is an absolute mess. Redlands and Whittier both pick up awesome indirect wins, but they should be negated later in the year by direct wins. This match definitely goes a long way towards damaging any mystique CMS might have left over after their choke against Williams. I don’t really know what else to say about this except bravo to Swarthmore.
One freshman is out with injuries and the other is recovering from a serious virus infection. Both should be returning from what I understand. Bad timing.
If the argument is that Claremont did not play their starters, that only works as to no. 6. Koltrappa, a non-starter,neon at number 5, the only singles win for CMS . Does anyone know why the other two 4 star freshmen who played extremely well in the fall are not playing?
the comment below sums up the freshmen, but Kotrappa has been playing well this year. He has wins over Santa Cruz, westmont, and other schools. Not to mention that he pushed Tommy Meyer, PP’s #1 to three sets, a match he should have won if he hadn’t full body cramped. Tough love.
So after Swarthmore getting the wins over ranked Occidental and CMS, do you think they will be ranked? If so, around what #?
Swarthmore will definitely be ranked, but probably not top 20 given their losses to Whittier and Redlands
Swarthmore can’t do it again today and complete the claremont college sweep can they? Would’ve said no way based off their results against Kenyon, Redlands, Whittier and Oxy but now….PP did lose the doubles point yesterday…
I doubt it. I don’t think P-P losing the doubles point yesterday is really indicative of anything. Mary Washington has been great in doubles so far. Swat, not so much. If Swarthmore does win today, however, they will have to be considered very legitimate Pool C contenders
Very true, gotta think they’ll be running on fumes and won’t catch Pomona with their head between their legs either
Somehow, I’m not surprised. For how talented they are, the Stags are serious underachievers. Hopefully this will help wake them up. Kudos to Swat
Insane result. Short term rankings are an absolute mess right now, CMS will drop but how much? Everyone knows or at least thinks they are better than all the other West teams but until directs start coming into play or other indirects do they stay ahead of everyone else or fall behind them all?
I think the rankings committee has to go on the wins and losses a team actually has, not the wins and losses they will probably get in the future. Obviously, their results in the next week will effect their ranking. If they lose to Cruz, they will probably drop out of the top 10 (maybe top 15) until they start earning it back with wins. If they beat Cruz, they will probably stay in the top 10, but they would drop to around 8 or 9, behind everyone who has a good win with no losses. Everyone knows that CMS is one of the top 5 teams, but the ranking committee basically has to rank them based on their results.