I’m back! It’s been a while, and I’ve been on vacation/working/doing other things, but I still have kept up with DIII Tennis along the way. Thanks to my bros D3Central and D3West for keeping me up to date on Twitter, and at the behest of the almighty D3TG, here is my blurb on the state of the Atlantic South. You all know what to expect – my region is by far the biggest underperforming region in the nation. Let’s go team-by-team to figure out what’s going on (no one is safe). Shoutout to @bcchillin69 for his support on Twitter. Thanks to all of you for getting excited about my articles.
Emory
At this moment, Emory is the only team in my region that I can give only positive feedback for. In what was supposed to be a down year for them, they’ve come up big in multiple matches and reached the finals of Indoors and Stag-Hen, securing the right to be in top 2 conversations. They continue to try and find a consistent #6 player as well as consistent doubles teams, but Coach Browning ALWAYS gets it right at the end of the season and he will again this year. Great win by Emory over Bowdoin, a team that clearly is fighting this year – and we had some encouraging performances against CMS. Wagner has proven that he’s one of the best #3s in the nation, Mosestick took a set off of Lane, and Will Adams may be the new #6 guy as he had a solid win over Bowdoin and took CMS to 3 sets. At #1 and #2 singles, the Eagles seem to be a boom or bust type of team, and every team should be scared if one or both of those guys catch fire in the tournament.
Current State: Nothing to Worry About
Johns Hopkins
Oh, Hopkins. DIII Tennis’ prodigal son is up to it’s old tricks again, teasing us with talent but not breaking through to the top. Since my last article, Hopkins has beaten #10 Tyler 7-2, lost to #7 Trinity 5-4, and beat #21 Bates 5-4. Taking a peek into the boxscores, it looks like Hopkins is going with the classic “random team at #1 doubles and hope for the best” strategy. Lim/Brown are now entrenched at #2 dubs and Hersh/Camei are now at #3. Against three ranked teams, they were up 2-1 in two matches. Good strategy. Not surprisingly, the #4 team in the country has won all 3 matches at 2 doubles. However, it’s now singles that may be a problem moving forward. Against Bates, JHU made the long anticipated move of Brown to #1 singles, where he went on to beat a good player in Crampton. Here’s the problem – Hersh lost at #2 to Bettles, and routinely. Even though I am a huge fan of Hersh (attitude, leadership, desire) the fact of the matter is that he is not a true #1. We’ve known this for a while. He has a game style in which the match depends on the other player’s daily performance. Which brings the question: If Hersh plays Burgin/Raz, Dorn, Ruderman, Sun, Kahan, Worley, or anyone else in NCAAs, who are you going to take? It’s scary. Not to mention the bottom of the lineup, where Lim has moved to #4 (called that one) and Reiter has made a drop all the way to #6 against Bates. Lim/Weissler/Reiter is a solid trio at the bottom of the lineup. However, I have serious questions about the mental strength at 5 and 6. Can these guys pull out a big win if the top of the lineup falters? Lim can for sure, but the other two… that’s where things get interesting. Big match against CMU this weekend for the Jays.
Current State: In Limbo
Carnegie Mellon University
Meet Hopkins younger sibling, Carnegie Mellon. A talented team in singles, 0 idea of what’s going on in doubles, and the masters of underachievement to date. They are following in the footsteps of Hopkins – except they have nothing to their name at the moment. The Tartans got swept on their SB trip, losing to Bowdoin 6-3, Trinity 8-1, and Tyler 5-4 (add 3 matches to your Hopkins scores and you have CMU). What was really amazing about these three losses was how they happened. They went into singles against Bowdoin up 2-1, and won FOUR first sets in singles. Watching this, I was counting on a great start and win. They then choked away three of those first sets, and combined with a spanking at #4 and #6, easily lost 6-3. In my mind, this determined their spring break. All confidence from their fall Amherst win had gone. Trinity absolutely walloped them, sweeping doubles and CMU then went into the tank in singles. Seriously, they got one set with no DelaFuente playing. Really? D3Tennis mentioned to me that “CMU’s starting lineup all had higher junior TRecruiting rankings than everyone in Trinity’s lineup.” All I could say was… Wow. Moving on, the Tyler match was absolutely the most disappointing. They could have salvaged a SB by beating now #10 Tyler. They swept doubles. They won 3 first sets. And they ended up with 1 singles win at #6, to lose 5-4. Here’s probably what happened – this confident CMU team swept doubles and have been all about singles this year. CMU got complacent, and paid the price. Note: I’ve heard from around the block that Hasegawa began serving underhand in the 3rd set because he was tight. What’s going on in practice over at CMU? That should never happen to anyone in any match. Hey, at least they beat Mary Wash the other day 7-2. Huge match against Hop on Sunday.
Current State: Hanging by a Thread
Mary Washington Eagles
It’s pretty bad that the Eagles are my fourth best team in the region at the moment. I’m pretty sure that in the past 5 years, the Eagles have a 20% winning percentage against ranked teams. And that’s not even an exaggeration. They’ve beaten Washington and Lee (ugh, my team) out of their 8 ranked opponents. They’ve lost to Pomona Pitzer, who is having a ridiculous amount of trouble right now. Plus, they haven’t come close, with no 5-4 matches, against any of the other ranked teams. Carey can’t catch a break at 1, which D3TG mentioned, and Alex Blahkin has 1 win all year, and that was at #3 singles (shoutout to whoever bashed me on Twitter for saying he was underachieving). This is forcing Evan Charles into higher spots in the lineup, where he predictably is struggling against tough competition. Overall, the fact of the matter is that every one of Mary Washington’s spots is one spot too high. And if you think about it, that calls for 4-6 singles losses every time out. Their doubles, albeit with a very good #1 team in Charles/Rizzolo, obviously can’t get them a sweep against the best teams. Luckily for the Eagles, their conference is still a cakewalk, and they’ll make it into the tournament. Contradictory to D3TG, I don’t think they’ll be a tough out for any good team. They’ll probably end up with a 3 seed and get ousted easily by a #2 Middlebury, Tyler, or someone else.
Current State: Lucky, but not Good
North Carolina Wesleyan Battling Bishops
When I looked at the NCW schedule, I actually laughed. These guys literally just chill in the back of the class, take the test, and end up getting a C and passing through school. The rest of the matches for the Bishops will be against Emory and Hopkins, which they will most likely lose. Like UMW, they’ll easily win their conference and be set up in a ridiculous region, most likely Emory’s. And expectedly, their tournament run will end in Atlanta. They have one match that may be a battle in Washington and Lee, but we don’t really know anything about that team at the moment. The Bishops were banking on maybe one win at Indoors/Spring Break to keep them afloat in the top 15, but that unfortunately did not happen. Man, I hate writing about the Bishops. Why can’t they just be a team of Kjellbergs and Prostaks? If they can pull off a win against Hopkins, then I’ll start to write in more detail about them. I think overall that the really good news is that Ljungdahl is a legit 3 after he beat Lane in three sets, and at least they have the formula for winning now, which would be 1 and 2 doubles, and 1-3 singles. Notice how that may work against Hopkins. Also notice that the maximum points they can get against good teams is 5. Which is never a good story. Here’s to NCW hoping that they are not put in Emory’s region.
Current State: Praying for the Best
Washington and Lee Generals
The Generals have played one important match this year, against Mary Washington in their annual “home and home” series, and lost, 6-3. It was a close match, with the Generals coming two three-set losses away from winning this one 5-4. However, that’s not close to any sign of positivity for this team. Against UMW, they got smacked at 2 and 3 doubles, Shamshiri continues to lose, and Holt lost a three setter to Blahkin. At least they have Hayden White, who will qualify for his fourth NCAA tourney (I believe) and will hopefully get a good draw on his way to All-American status. They may even get a doubles team in with the #1 team’s win over UMW, but that is still up for grabs. This is another team that will get a pretty easy conference win, barring any mess-ups, but will also be put into Emory’s bracket for regional purposes. Another ASouth team ending their run in Atlanta… man, this is getting redundant.
Current State: Accepting their Fate
Swarthmore Garnet
Swarthmore is actually one of my favorite teams in the region now. These guys fight hard, they play to their potential, and they are out to prove a point. These are great qualities in a team, and I would never want to play Swat on a day where they are hot. The Garnet have taken my “N/R” prediction at the beginning of the season and notched their signature win of the year, over P-P 6-3, to give them a top 30 ranking for what looks like the rest of the year. For the rest of the schedule, they have a chance for a huge upset in Hopkins, and a lot of mid-level matches such as Vassar, Haverford, and Mary Washington so they can get some matches under their belt. I think this team will actually beat all three of those teams, with Haverford being the potential upset (surprise!). The Swat singles is clearly their strength, they always seem to give top teams a lot of trouble at random spots. This means to me that they are solid all around the lineup. Unfortunately for the Garnet, they have Hopkins in their conference and there is no way that team is getting denied from the NCAA tournament. A successful season for this team would be a top 25 ranking for the second year running, which I optimistically think they are on track to achieve. Go Garnet!
Current State: High Hopes
That’s all I’ve got for now regarding the State of the Atlantic South. Thanks for tuning in, and I am hoping to touch on some of my lesser discussed teams in an article sometime soon. I see you, Oglethorpe. Don’t worry.
Could somebody please tell me why the Atlantic South rankings, (March 28th), haven’t even been submitted? This is the first ranking since preseason and the kids deserve better. Unless there is a reasonable excuse, I find this irresponsible, and inconsiderate.
YOU DARE QUESTION THE ALL-KNOWING BROWNING?! He’s notoriously late on his regional rankings. Other than that, I have no insight as to the situation.
Curious as to why you have Mary Washington ahead of NCW or Swarthmore for that matter? NCW beat them and has wins over common opponents they lost to (Pomona). Swarthmore has wins over common opponents (Pomona) as well.
Just a thought. I’m sure after Hopkins and Emory the others could all probably beat each other though I would definitely give the edge to either Carnegie or NCW and those two could also beat Hopkins or Emory on the right day where as Mary Washington and Swartmore would need miracles (though Swarthmore has done miracle before).
To be honest, that was a blogging error on my part. It wasn’t until after I wrote about Mary Wash that I remembered NCW and Swat, so you are totally correct. Both of those teams would be ahead of UMW at the moment. Thank you for calling it out.