Welcome to another installment of the Spring Break Epilogues. Today we get a look at the highest ranked NE team, who kept their stranglehold on the #2 spot in our weekly Power Rankings. The Amherst Lord Jeffs had one of the most interesting Spring Break schedules that I’ve ever seen. They played 17 matches in 6 days, often playing 2 matches at the same time. 6 days and 17 matches later, the Jeffs left Cali with a record of 15-2 on their trip, with their only losses coming at the hands of Concordia and CMS. While I’m sure that getting their #22 some match play against non-DIII schools was extremely valuable, I’m only going to focus on their matches vs. other ranked D3 schools. You can find all of their results in the table below.
Results Table Below
| Mon. Mar. 17 | @ Hope International | W 9-0 (4-0/0-0) |
| Mon. Mar. 17 | @ Concordia | L 5-4 (4-1/0-0) |
| Mon. Mar. 17 | @ Vanguard | W 5-4 (5-1/0-0) |
| Tue. Mar. 18 | @ Pomona | W 6-3 (6-1/0-0) |
| Tue. Mar. 18 | @ Westmont | W 6-3 (7-1/0-0) |
| Wed. Mar. 19 | @ Chapman | W 8-1 (8-1/0-0) |
| Wed. Mar. 19 | @ Whittier | W 9-0 (9-1/0-0) |
| Thu. Mar. 20 | @ Glendale | W 8-1 (10-1/0-0) |
| Thu. Mar. 20 | @ Azusa Pacific | W 5-4 (11-1/0-0) |
| Thu. Mar. 20 | @ Point Loma Nazarene | W 7-2 (12-1/0-0) |
| Fri. Mar. 21 | @ CMS | L 6-3 (12-2/0-0) |
| Fri. Mar. 21 | @ Cerritos | W 6-3 (13-2/0-0) |
| Fri. Mar. 21 | @ Riverside City | W 9-0 (14-2/0-0) |
| Fri. Mar. 21 | @ Cal Tech | W 9-0 (15-2/0-0) |
| Sat. Mar. 22 | @ Santa Cruz | W 9-0 (16-2/0-0) |
| Sat. Mar. 22 | @ San Diego Mesa College | W 9-0 (17-2/0-0) |
| Sat. Mar. 22 | @ Redlands | W 9-0 (18-2/0-0) |
The Good
Whittier, Santa Cruz, Redlands, Pomona
Yep, I’d say 27-0 against 3 teams in the top 20 is pretty damn decent. The best part? The Jeffs played Santa Cruz and Redlands at the exact same time! In looking at all 3 matches, it was clear that Garner knew exactly what he was doing with these matchups. The Amherst team that played Whittier had their top 3 singles players and 2 top doubles teams. Garner assumed that his #14 would be able to take care of Whittier’s lack of depth, and he was right. Fritz handled DK with ease, and only one of the singles matches went to a super-breaker.
Similarly with Redlands, Amherst started 4 of their top 7 and 2 of their top doubles teams. Like the Poets, the Dawgs have a lack of depth, and are significantly stronger at the top. It was too bad we didn’t get to see a Lipscomb/Fritz battle (Lipscomb didn’t play at all that day) but after Fritz handled Cummins there was little other chance of an upset. Again, only one singles match went to 3-sets.
Finally, Amherst squared off with Sluglyfe Nation. With Cruz not being quite as strong at the top of their lineup, this Amherst lineup was a little deeper and not quite as top heavy. Because of this we saw some closer matches (one super and one 3-setter, in addition to closer overall doubles scores) but the Jeffs brought out their brooms for the 3rd time that day and swept the Slugs.
Pomona is back on the up and up. You know it, I know it, even LoveD3Tennis knows it. Before Amherst, all of PP’s losses have been 5-4 to #6 Trinity Tx, #7 Carnegie, #11 Bowdoin (5-3) and #8 Williams. So I don’t understand why so many people were hating on Amherst after their 6-3 win over Pomona. Amherst only started 4 out of their usual 6, and started 2/3 doubles. Pomona’s frosh are really good, and apparently at least Maassen is “the classiest”. Amherst did exactly what they needed to do and came out of the Hen-House with an easy win. Props to Yasgoor and Maassen for their victories, but the day still clearly belonged to Amherst.
The Bad
CMS
Let’s be honest here folks, unless you wore a purple A on your chest that day, not one of you thought Amherst was actually going to win this match…in March. CMS has simply looked too dominant. So a 6-3 loss to the #1 team in the country isn’t that bad. HOWEVER, when you’re as good as Amherst, a loss is never good. In fact, it’s (to put is eloquently) bad. Which do you stand for Amherst, goodness, or badness? If Amherst wants to earn their Fresca, they’ll have to tighten up their lower doubles teams. I still believe the Jeffs to be the 2nd best team in the country right now, and I also believe that if these two teams were to play again in the NCAA finals, it would live up to its billing as the two best teams in the country.
What’s Next
Amherst started their NESCAC season in style, thrashing Tufts 9-0 last Saturday. Next up for the Jeffs will be the traveling Gusties on Saturday afternoon, and then (shocker) 2 matches that will overlap on Sunday afternoon (Babson at 12 and Skidmore at 2pm). Amherst plays the easy part of its NESCAC schedule early on, with a trip up to Maine April 12/13 serving as its toughest competition until the end of the season. Amherst’s final two matches of the spring will be at Williams and at Middlebury in late April and early May. Until then, we could see split squad victories galore.
The article I suggest should be written should provide support for what I think is the rise in the level of D3 tennis against other collegiate divisions by recounting what I think is a totally overlooked close recent match by CMS against the #5 ranked in D1 UCLA Bruins. If anyone can cite a fairly recent example of a D3 school doing anywhere near that well against a top ranked D1 school, I’d love to read about it, and I’m sure others would as well.
I’m not going to do the research, but basically DIII and DII are very similar. If anything, I would say DII is just barely stronger than DIII. Wash U can beat Drury (DII #12) and Amherst can beat Azusa Pacific (DII #10), but if more similarly ranked DII/DIII schools play each other, the DII school will tend to win by just a little bit (Azusa Pacific beat Emory). That is pretty much true all the way down to #50.
The only big difference is that the top DII teams are absolutely nasty. They’re basically teams of professionals. Look at CMS’ result against Hawaii Pacific last year, and you’ll see that the Stags weren’t even close.
Regarding DI vs. DIII. There’s basically no precedent. The bottom DI teams can be incredibly weak and tend not to schedule top DIII teams because they lose every time and that’s bad for their program. The ranked DI teams could definitely lose to the best DIII teams, but they basically never schedule those matches. If I had to guess where a team like CMS would fit in DI, I would put them around 50 if I was being generous. That’s not meant to be any disrespect to CMS, it’s just that there are very few examples of DIII teams ever beating ranked DI teams, even teams ranked in the 70’s. DIII tennis is continuously getting better. In a couple years, maybe DIII will be as good as DII, but DIII is still lightyears away from DI.
D3West,
Thanks for your comments., but you did not respond to my primary observations of how D3 is doing against NAIA competition, teams that it seems D3 teams play slightly more frequently than D2 teams.
Perhaps CMS is just a freakishly good D3 team, an aberration that shouldn’t be used to mark any trend to establish how D3 compares against other divisions. However, I still think their results this year are relevant.
You are correct that CMS lost last year to then #7 ranked in D2 Hawaii Pacific, 2 – 7. They also lost last year to then #5 in D2 ranked BYU – Hawaii 4 – 5. And they also lost last year to then #6 ranked in NAIA Vanguard, 2 – 7.
This year CMS beat then #4 in NAIA ranked Vanguard 6 – 3, so perhaps that yearly turnaround against Vanguard can be used to support an argument that CMS would do better this year against Hawaii Pacific and BYU Hawaii, and maybe even beat them. CMS’ showing against UCLA this year, a team I suspect you might think would handily beat both of those Hawaii teams, is further support for this proposition which, unfortunately, can’t come close to be conclusively proven.
DIII is stronger than NAIA. It used to be close, but NAIA keeps losing it’s top teams.
With regard to the CMS argument. I think you’re reading too much into that UCLA result and not considering the fact that the Bruins were probably on cruise control. Certain unranked DI teams have been able to take matches off them, so I don’t think you can look at a bunch of close sets and say, “Wow, CMS was right there. They’re probably a top 25 DI team” because it just isn’t true. This year’s CMS team isn’t that much better than last year’s team. (They’re both great DIII tennis teams). If they were to play Hawaii Pacific again this year, they would get handily beaten again. Also, at no point last year was BYU Hawaii ranked any higher than 20th. The only reason they beat CMS in the first place was because the Stags didn’t play their whole lineup
D3 West,
You’re right about BYU Hawaii (I think I used a match score as a ranking number).
I do think my reasoning is logical to show how CMS improvement against Vanguard this year could lead to a conclusion that it would likely they would be stronger this year against Hawaii Pacific. After all, isn’t that the technique that most D3 tennis blog writers rely upon, and rightfully so, in determining how teams should be ranked and who should win upcoming matches?
While it is off subject, I will have to check whether, this year at least, UCLA has lost individual or doubles matches against an UNRANKED D1 opponent. If that happened, I think, most likely, that was because they did not play their starting lineup, which they apparently did against CMS.
You focus on how D3 would do against D1 teams, but that was subject I think should be the focus of an article. There is no doubt that D1 tennis is much stronger than D3 and I don’t question that CMS would have difficulty being ranked within the top 50 of D1 teams. Very frankly, I don’t care. D1, as a division, is clearly much stronger than all of the other divisions, so can’t be compared to any of them. My point is that a comparison of the top D2, D3, NAIA, and NCCAA teams (though I hear some of those teams move, over time, to D2) is pretty close, so an article comparing them and which direction each is going in terms of their getting stronger or weaker as a division (along with the reasons for that) would be interesting yearly reading.
I hope this ends our discussion on this subject.
Thanks for what appears to be very knowledgeable comments, guys. I don’t think, when I review the schedules of the top 10 D3 teams, I will find many matches between them and the top NAIA teams, and probably fewer between the top D3 and top D2 teams. Based upon what I have seen so far (and, again, that may be all there is to see), D3 tops NAIA this year with CMS and Amherst wins over both NAIA #3 Vanguard and #5 Westmont. This represents an improvement over 2013, when CMS lost to Vanguard, 2 – 7. Amherst beat both Vanguard and Westmont in 2013.
What I’d love to read is an article from someone who has some depth of knowledge about D3 along with D2, NAIA, and JUCO, and NCCAA (National Christian College Athletic Association, which competes at a fairly high level and has top teams that D3 teams sometimes play, which the D3 teams seem to beat more often than not), which would compare the level of men’s tennis for each division and provide some historical perspective and trends relating to that subject. But that article probably won’t be published anytime soon. Again, thanks for your comments.
Only two Amherst players from the Concordia match (Revzin, Solimano) played against CMS. On the same exact day as the Concordia match, Amherst sent most of its ‘A’ team to play Vanguard (the #3 team in NAIA) , pulling out a 5-4 win. Given these factors, it’s probably safe to assume that a full-strength Amherst squad would have beaten Concordia fairly easily.
“Dummy” LoveD3Tennis wants to ask his ardent fans, all of the writers on this blog, who simply love all of my comments, questions and ideas, a question that relates to this article. As mentioned earlier, I will probably write a comment this sea on which will show the D3 top ten ranked teams’ record this year agains the top ten teams from NAIA and the top ten teams from D2, though there will be very few of those matches. I will also compare that record versus the comparable record for the prior season. I think the results will show a clear domination of D3 over NAIA this year (primarily because of the CMS’ record against NAIA) and an improvement in D3 over NAIA compared to last season, because of CMS’ improvement this year against NAIA. But this is just from memory so I need to compile the data.
Amherst obviously did not play their best lineup against Concordia, I believe now ranked #11 in NAIA, in their 5-4 loss to Concordia. Given that fact (but please check), should I score that simply as a win for Concordia or should I have a separate second record compilation showing the likely result of Amherst playing their full first string in that match? Do you think Amherst would have prevailed if they had played their first string (for instance, Fritz did not play and there seem to be some new names amongst the Amherst losers in that match, though I haven’t sat down and done a full comparison to Amherst’s starting lineup versus CMS). My best guess is that Amherst would have won, at least 5-4 and probably 6-3, if they had played their first string. But the always expert opinion among the D3 blog writers (best year in terms of quality of writing and number of stories, by far), would be appreciated. Best reply would include the estimated score versus Concordia by each writer if Amherst had played their first string.
Amherst probably would’ve won the match 6-3 at least, but it’s hard to just discount the match. I’m sure both NAIA teams and DIII teams often play split squads against each other
While it’s always very difficult to determine with Amherst, my best guess is that the Jeffs team vs. Concordia featured their #’s 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 12 , along with their #2, 5, and 6 doubles teams. Seeing as Amherst won all 3 lower singles positions, I would have to imagine that they would have gotten at least 2 more wins if some of their normal guys (Fritz, Dale, Zykov, Yaraghi, Reindell) were thrown in there. Also, after reviewing their other matches, Concordia’s lineup seems to be their everyday squad. In a full-team match with something on the line, I’d take Amherst 6-3 or even 7-2