2014 Season Preview: Trinity (TX)

Hey all, I know you were enjoying the long break from my stinging witticisms, but I have one more big one to finish, and I don’t want to give the Tigers any more reason to pull out the “Nobody Believes in Us” Card.

Coach: Russel McMindes (5th season)

Location: San Antonio, TX

2010: 10

2011 Ranking: 10

2012 Ranking: 10

2013 Ranking: 8

2014 Projected Ranking: 4

Overview: As you can see, Trinity is nothing if not consistent. With their conference and their location, there are going to the tournament every year, where they will always make the Sweet Sixteen at the very least. Last year saw their return to the Elite Eight where they fell in a 5-1 match to the eventual champs. Despite the final score, the Tigers played Williams incredibly tough in singles, with several matches coming down to the wire and senior Erick DelaFuente coming up with the sole victory at #4 singles. The defeat had to leave them wondering, “what if we could’ve come up with just one doubles victory.”

That’s not a phrase you hear from Trinity fans very often, but the fact is, the days have past since you can count on these guys for 2 doubles wins against anyone. They have come down from their lofty perch atop doubles mountain, and their national champion doesn’t know how to serve. That being said, the Tigers are absolutely poised to make a deep run. One could even go so far as to say that they are on the prowl, so to speak, if I may. They return a national champion, two phenomenal senior leaders, among the best 5/6 combinations in the country, and brought in a guy who could be #1 among all those guys. If that weren’t enough, they have a very talented sophomore  – who beat their national champ – eager to get into the singles lineup, and an all-American doubles team that doesn’t include any of the players I’ve already mentioned. To say their lineup is stacked (in the good sense, not the cheating sense) would be a massive understatement.

Other teams get a lot of credit, but I truly believe Trinity is the best team in the country at developing their talent. They don’t get 4- and 5-stars (usually), but they consistently turn 3- and 2-stars like Frey, DelaFuente, Cocanougher, and Kowal into all-Americans. Despite their geographic isolation, they always come up with a great schedule, which only handicaps them in terms of late-season strength of schedule. All things considered, I would say this is one West region team that nobody should take lightly. People gave the Guru crap for picking them a couple years ago, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this ended up being the year they broke back into the Final Four.

Lineup Analysis

Key Additions: Paxton Duell, Clayton Niess, Chas Mayer, Iiiiiian Logan, Roland Green, Manuel Brown

Key Losses: Erick DelaFuente (4 singles, 1 doubles)

Erick DelaFuente was invaluable to Trinity both as a player and a leader, but Trinity has found the perfect replacement for him transfer Paxton Duell. Duell– as you may know– won the Texas regional without dropping a set, and proceeded to finish 5th at ITAs with wins over La Cava, Trinka, and Halpern. The Tigers might be losing something in doubles without DelaFuente, but any time you can trade a #4 singles player for a #1 or #2 singles player, you take that trade.

If you just substitute Duell in, the projected lineup would look something like this:

1. Duell

2. Skinner

3. Moreno

4. Haugen

5. Mayer

6. Curtis

At the end of last season, Curtis may have been the best #6 in the country, but it’s not even that simple. Sophomore Connor Dunn beat Skinner in the fall tournament, and it’s hard to see him not fitting in that singles lineup somewhere. That being said, I just don’t know who you end up leaving out. We didn’t see Jordan Mayer playing in the fall, so maybe he’s the odd man out. Regardless, the Tigers have at least 7 can’t-miss guys in singles, and that’s before you start counting the freshmen and other veterans who’ve been working their butts off for the last couple years.

None of that really matters because the Tigers were already silently one of the deepest teams in the country last year. They should be marginally deeper this year, but they were already good enough to take three singles matches off literally any team in the country. Where they fell short last year, ironically, was in doubles. They got swept by Williams and CMS, lost two against GAC, Cal Lu and Hopkins (Hopkins!?). They had good results too, but these guys used to be a lock to win at least one doubles match against anyone, and that was before they had the singles talent that they do now. To make the leap they are capable of making this year, the Tigers will need to come up with some better doubles teams.

DelaFuente is gone, so they will have to shuffle up their #1 team, and I’m not convinced the ITA champion team of Guin and Thompson will be in the lineup. The Tigers could keep their #2 and #3 teams of Moreno/Skinner, Dunn/Haugen together from last year, but I suspect Coach Newman will want to split Duell and Niess, who made it to the finals in the fal, and throw Duell in there with a more experienced doubles player. Maybe Dunn/Mayer, Duell/Haugen, Moreno/Skinner, but I have no idea. Point is, the Tigers can win three singles matches against anyone; will they be able to win two doubles matches?

Schedule Analysis

The Tigers have put together quite a schedule this year

They start off with their annual trip to Indoor Nationals where they will renew their friendvalry with Cal Lu. With Ballou in the lineup, that will be a barnburner. Assuming Ballou’s healthy, The Kingsmen can take those two points, but I would expect TU to win 4/5/6 singles. In the end, I think it will come down to whether or not TU can take two doubles matches. If they do, they will win, and if they beat the Kinsmen, they will be in excellent shape to make the finals. In the semifinals, they would be going up against a young Wash U team playing its first big test. That could be a catacalysmic clash, but I’m not about to preview a match that might not happen. If they lose the first round, they will have a big match against Redlands, which would be an enormous opportunity for the Bulldogs to pick up a resume-boosting win early in the season.

In March, their next big test will be SPRING BREAK WALLA WALLA. I haven’t mentioned the other little nuance typical of any TU men’s tennis team, and that’s their annual dungball. It seems like once every year, Trinity shits their pants in a random match that they really should win. It didn’t happen last year, but the previous year they lost to Skidmore, and the year before that, they lost to… you guessed it… Whitman. The Tigers should really be on guard not to shit their pants against Whitman and Cruz (both teams they should beat), but their previous pants-shittings tended to happen right before really big matches… like… for example… against CMS, for instance. Abundant ellipses aside, this is the big match of Spring Break Walla Walla. TU and CMS on a neutral court. What more could you ask for? I’ve made it known what I think CMS is going to do this year, but TU has the guns to take them down. With Skinner and Duell, they could easily take the top 2 on a good day, and I think they will split the bottom two positions. The end result will, inevitably, come down to doubles. I think the Stags take it 5-4, but it should be a great match.

After that, the Tigers will go straight to So Cal for matches against Redlands and P-P. In my mind they’re huge favorites in both of those matches, but they’ll have to deal with a tough travel schedule, soreness, and Redlands’ solid home court advantage.

With those matches behind them , TU’s last big match of the season will be a home match against Tyler on April 12th. Without Ybarra and Brown, Tyler really isn’t that much of a threat to TU, but I’m still not ruling out the possibility that Bizot has an ace up his sleeve. Either way, the Tigers will cruise through their conference and hopefully get the #1 seed in the friendly Midwest regional, where they will maul GAC or Whitewater en route to another Elite Eight. That’s where things will get real for the Tigers. I truly believe that this could be their year to make the Final Four. How many teams can beat them? I think they’re just as good as Williams, Midd, Bowdoin, Wash U, Hopkins, Kenyon, and the other usual suspects. Just one time, this May, TU will show the nation that CMS isn’t the only West region team to be reckoned with.