As usual, the a couple West region teams are playing in the first big match of the year, and here’s to hoping two West region teams will play the last big match of the year too. (It’s a bit of a long shot).
This won’t be a long preview because there’s only one match and we know so little about the teams at this point, but I’ll try to be as thorough as possible. Head Coach Steve Bickham is starting his tenure by driving up to Santa Cruz for a match in with the Slugs. Normally, this would be a tall order; Cruz’ home court advantage is probably good for about 1.5 matches, but we know the Slugs are depleted this year.
Here’s the lineup UCSC trotted out against Santa Clara:
Doubles:
1. Scandalis/Goetz
2. Deguchi/Littlejohn
3. Richter/Hollister
Singles:
1. Scandalis
2. Littlejohn
3. Richter
4. Goetz
5. Deguchi
6. Soper
Assuming a P-P lineup that looks something like what I had in the season preview (shown below), the Slugs will be outmanned at basically every position in singles. If I were to imagine a scenario where the Slugs win this match, it looks something like this: Cruz uses its superior match experience and home court advantage to string together a doubles sweep then has its veteran guys come up with a couple victories over P-P’s nervous freshman. The Slugs might actually have the advantage in doubles here. Their #2 team obviously has a very high ceiling, and Goetz is a very talented lefty doubles player who can take over a match. He and Scandalis were able to take Santa Clara’s #1 team to a tiebreaker, so they must know how to play some dubs. Richter was pretty successful in doubles at Earlham last year, so the Slugs at least have some strength at all three doubles positions.
Everyone is writing off Cruz this year, but you can never underestimate the value of an offseason full of very hard work. These guys are going to be tougher than people are giving them credit for. Nevertheless, I think P-P will manage to pull out at least one doubles match, and that’s probably all they’ll need. Weichert is gonna be a rock at the top of the singles lineup, and the Hens’ superior singles depth will carry them to victory in this one.
1. Weichert
2. Yasgoor
3. Maassen
4. Hudson
5. Sutton
6. Wei
– See more at: http://www.division3tennis.com/2014-season-preview-pomona-pitzer-sagehens/#sthash.0bTKIPrm.dpuf
Match cancelled due to rain. 🙁