3/4 Division III Tennis Composite Rankings

As promised, the third installation of our weekly power rankings can be found below.  These rankings actually coincide with the introduction of our first ITA Spring Rankings, which can be found here:

The ITA committee is unfortunately bound by the timing of the schedule and cannot take into account perceived talent and projections into their rankings.  They serve as a good indication of who would get into the tournament at this very moment.  Obviously, that proves to be a bit of a variable when we go through our power rankings.  I’ve also provided a short blurb on some of our biggest movers week to week below the rankings.  Please feel free to comment on what you think!

Biggest Movers:

#14 Gustavus Adolphus, Up 4 Spots – GAC capped off a pretty solid weekend with a pair of 7-2 victories over NR Chicago as well as #22 UWW.  It seems like GAC has re-discovered their doubles prowess after a shaky start against Wash U, and that definitely played a big part in our rankings.  Combining GAC’s convincing wins over somewhat tough opponents with the failure of some of our other mid-ranked teams, GAC was able to vault themselves into the #14 spot, which would be one of their highest rankings in the past 2 years.  In the ITA Rankings, GAC currently sits at #18 as they have not beaten anyone ahead of them in the rankings so far this year.  With a well coached and deep team, look for GAC to make some strides and potentially upset one of the teams ranked ahead of them.

#17 UT-Tyler, Up 10 Spots – How does a team play no important DIII matches and move up 10 spots?  By having a phenomenal showing against Incarnate Word, the #73 team in all of Division I.  They currently have Ryan Spencer, who used to be entrenched at the top of the lineup, at the #5 singles spot.  I am totally unsure of how Coach Bizot gets these players, but hey whatever works.  It looks like UT-Tyler has the talent base to have another really good season, which hopefully won’t end up losing to UT-Dallas and screwing everyone over.  The team expects big things out of Tyler moving forward, and don’t be surprised if these guys break into the top 12 later on this year.

#18 Mary Washington, Up 5 Spots – The Eagles got lucky with their scheduling and got a signature win right before these power rankings were posted.  With their convincing 6-3 victory yesterday over the Kingsmen of CLU, the Eagles are now ranked back into the top 20 and hopefully are on the way up.  Given that Redlands only beat CLU 5-4 at a neutral site, could the Eagles take another stride and take down the Dawgs?  It’ll definitely be an interesting match.

#19 Santa Cruz, Up 6 Spots – The Slugs, who D3West so eloquently recapped in today’s earlier article, get the benefit of taking down a similar opponent in the #20 Whittier Poets.  A lot has been made of graduations, coaching, and other departures from the Cruz tennis landscape, but these guys continue to chip away and work hard for their wins.  Having a win against a currently top 20 team is a big feather in their cap and this team should hover around this range for the rest of the year.

#30 Skidmore, Down 14 Spots – This is what happens when you lose to an un-ranked team that happened to be on nobody’s radar.  With their convincing loss to NYU, Skidmore dropped from a potential team with a lot of talent to a team that will now be fighting for a ranking spot.  This was a disheartening loss for the Thoroughbreds especially because of the belief that they would take another step forward this year after a solid performance in 2012-2013.  They have started off the year going in the wrong direction and will really need a strong performance from Loutsenko to help pull back into the top 25.

#21 Cal Lutheran, Down 4 Spots – CLU has yet to win a ranked DIII match this year, and they’ve had 4 opportunities.  Their so-called easiest match was against Mary Washington on their home courts, but the Kingsmen failed to defend their own turf once again.  It’s disappointing to see the Eagles come in and beat a team that trains outdoors, on their own courts, and brought in a great transfer.  Just goes to show how hard graduations can kill you when it comes to tennis.

#29 NYU, #30 Swat, NR RPI – All three of these teams are coming off Top 30 wins despite previously being not rated by the writers.  Let the craziness of the DIII season begin!