I have recently been taking the heat from the almighty ASouth as to the effort put into the blog, but let’s put this into perspective in tournament time lingo. Take a look at my “body of work” over the last few months and you will see that I deserve to be heralded just as much as the rest. Does that mean I get a number 1 seed? Eh, maybe not, but who wants the pressure of that anyways? In all seriousness, the Central region goes into a slight lull in late February and early March as we like to hurry up and get as many indoor matches in before anyone else plays and then have the weird is it warm enough to go outside or stay indoors period. The good news is spring break always brings about some solid match-ups and we can thank the Wash U Bears for that. Case Western is off playing a bunch of crap D-1 schools, Kenyon is beating up on ASouth teams not named Emory/CMU, and everyone else is playing in region matches that used to matter, but now don’t (I’m looking at you Chicago/Depauw).
Wash U vs. University of Rochester March 10th
Newly crowned the #1 team in the nation after winning indoor nationals, Wash U has three matches on the slate before the Stag Hen. Two of these matches will be interesting to see how they play out. Today Wash U takes on Rochester which I am sure is one of those things where the Rochester players can go home and tell their friends “hey I took 2 games off of the best team in the country.” I am kidding for the most part. Rochester is a solid team with a good player in Shapiro, but they don’t have the firepower to compete with Wash U. I think this is a great strategy from Coach Follmer as it will get the Bears acclimated to the weather and outdoor tennis. Needless to say I am not going to waste any more of my breathe talking about this one.
Wash U vs. Bowdoin March 11th
On Tuesday, they will take on the Bowdoin Polar Bears in what looks to be a battle of who has the fiercest looking bear for a mascot. A quick google image search makes that an easy choice as Bowdoin goes with simplicity over scary. Wash U is in bit of a new territory as they typically are a team that peaks at the end of the season and not so early. Will the freshmen be able to carry the weight of being the best team in the country (let’s be real here, it’s CMS)? I think something that should be noted here is that Bowdoin will be playing their third match in 3 days all of whom are against top teams, Skidmore and CMU being the other two. Bowdoin’s strength is still in question as they are very early in the season so it will be hard to gauge that until after their match-up against CMU, but I think Wash U has the edge physically as they will be more rested. D3Northeast and I will be previewing this match so I won’t go in to depth on this until then.
Wash U vs. Carnegie Mellon March 14th
This is the opening round of the Stag-Hen so I won’t dive into it as we will be doing a big write up for it. But notice once again, Wash U will have two days off of match-play to prepare for it. Well done, Coach Follmer!
Questions to be answered for Wash U on spring break
- Is Wash U really the #1 team in the country not named CMS?
- Can Carswell/Bush/Noack stay on the tear coming off an undefeated Indoors
- Is a 2 1/2 week layoff going to hurt Wash U?
- How will playing outdoors effect the Bears?
- Are Polar Bears really as cuddly as they look?
Overall I think Wash U will have a good showing for this trip and come out confident that they belong at the top of the rankings. That doesn’t necessarily mean they will leave undefeated considering CMS is in the Stag-Hen, but no team is unbeatable and if anyone is able to upset, it’s Wash U. The unbeatable Amherst team of 3 years ago and attest to that! It will be a fun week of tennis.