A Weekend Recap: Emory Weekend! & Short ASouth Update

Oh man, oh man, oh man! What a freaking weekend.  It had been a little bit of time since I was able to catch some live action other than on live streams, and I picked one hell of a weekend to stop by.  If you all didn’t know, Emory hosted a ton of teams this weekend (Middlebury, Case, Kenyon, NCW, and Depauw) and every match we thought was going to be a doozy was a doozy.  Also, if you don’t believe that I was there, just check my twitter feed.  Heh.  To everyone that missed the chance of finding me, I pity you.  Maybe one day… maybe one day….  WELL anyways, I think the best way to go about this weekend is to recap each team’s weekend as well as what it means for them moving forward.  It’s late (as usual) so let’s get to it.

Emory Eagles

That’s what I’m talking about!! Before the weekend, I warned you all that Emory was about to surprise a ton of people by coming back and re-entering the national conversation.  It’s been probably 10+ years since they lost any match at home.  Everything other than recent results pointed to the Eagles stepping up and making sure you didn’t forget about them.  Never underestimate a team that has consistently been in the final 8 no matter what the circumstances.  Emory ended up finishing the weekend with an easy 5-1 win over Case, a 5-4 win against Middlebury, and a nail biting 5-4 win against Kenyon.  Obviously, the results were amazing for the Eagles as they should be in the top 6 for the rest of the year.  But, I think the best part of the weekend was the individual performances for Emory.  Thinking back to earlier in the year, Emory really struggled at two things – doubles and the top of the lineup, especially at #2.  Hitting on doubles first, it looks like Emory has brought back the doubles specialist, Ayush Bajoria, and paired him with another specialist, Jackson Issacs.  I believe this team played #2 last year so this is a team that isn’t totally new to the scene.  This #2 team ended up going 1-2 over the weekend, but they were close with the MIDD #2 team and took down a makeshift Case team.  If they can get half of their matches, that really puts Emory in a good position where they don’t have to worry every time out there. Another doubles performance to note was the Ruderman/Wagner team that beat Kenyon’s #1, Case #1, and went 9-8 against Middlebury’s #1.  They’ve been Emory’s most consistent team to date and this was a great weekend.  The only team I may have some major doubts about is #3.  It seems like the general Emory strategy is to play “singles-doubles,” where Emory really relies on great baseline games and talent to win.  I don’t think they have enough talent at #3 to really steal too many matches.  But, I’m being nitpicky now.  Onto singles, where the top of the lineup IMPRESSED ME.  I’ve named Ruderman my POW, but he was by far the most impressive this weekend.  Go to the POW to see what he did.  I didn’t think he had a shot against Johnston but the small grinding #1 player showed he’s got some serious f*cking game.  However, I’d also like to recognize Mr. Rafe Mosetick, another small, talented grinder on the Eagles.  I knew Rafe had some good results coming ever since I named him one of my “losers” from Indoors.  The kid showed he knew how to win last year, and did it again last weekend. Props.  What does this all mean?! It means that Emory is back in the game.  With Halpern (1-1 on the weekend) looking like he’s ready to compete against the best, the top of the lineup again becomes more of a neutral/strength than a weakness.  The bottom of the lineup remains rock solid, as we all expected.  I’m looking forward to this weekend where Hopkins visits them… and hey, don’t be surprised if I pick a revenge upset.  Actually, you should expect it. Great weekend for the Eagles in the Thunderdome.

Middlebury Panthers

I won’t go to in depth considering the Panthers aren’t my team.  I was able to see them play and I came away fairly impressed, however.  Before the match, I warned the readers about hype teams.  Middlebury, who was ranked at #5 in the power rankings, was one of these teams.  That being said, Middlebury came out and really proved to me that they are somewhere within the top 10 teams.  With a great coach, they don’t have a limit to their potential for years to come.  One thing I want to caution everyone on is that they had to take two 9-8 breaker wins in doubles and a super tiebreaker win at #6 when the match was over to salvage a 5-4 match against Emory.  Good news, however, is that they crushed Kenyon in their first match.  That was a great win and we certainly weren’t wrong saying that this is one of the better teams in DIII.  How good is the question we have to answer now.

Kenyon Lords

Oh, lords.  The lords are on the prowl right now for any win they can get.  They were underdogs in both their matches and they basically went as planned.  After  the first match, Kenyon just looked like crap.  They got swept in doubles which essentially was the dagger right off the bat.  The doubts we have had about the Lords doubles continue to be asked as we move on in the season.  Thing is, Kenyon doesn’t have many matches left.  In singles, Kenyon sent Heerboth out at #1 and he ended up losing, and they were only able to take 2 singles matches.  It was an extremely disappointing performance for the first match.  The Emory match was much more promising.  Kenyon always seems to play the Eagles close and this one was no different.  However, a different weakness reared its head as the bottom of the Kenyon lineup was no match for the strong Emory 4-6.  The good news is that they were up in doubles.  Overall, this was another lost weekend for Kenyon as they had chances to prove this wasn’t a rebuilding year but were unable to come through.  Good thing is, they beat DePauw fairly easily so they should win their conference once again.  They have one more significant match as they travel on the road to play an upstart CMU team.  That’s a must win if they want a #1 seed in NCAAs and the right to host on their rowdy courts.

Case Western

This was actually not a big weekend for Case.  They played two teams that will basically be ahead of them in the rankings, and we found out that Klaw was unavailable for the weekend.  Without Klaw, D3Central pointed out that all the doubles teams had to change to try and salvage a few wins.  In addition, that moved up everyone from the already suspect Case Western depth chart.  Klaw’s loss could really be seen in the Emory match where Emory essentially dominated the bottom of the lineup AND were able to take a lead in doubles, which we know is Case’s bread and butter.  The takeaway here is that this team simply isn’t top 10 caliber without Klawitter in the lineup.  Here’s to hoping he returns this weekend, where they have a big UAA showdown with Carnegie Mellon.

DePauw + NC Wesleyan

I’ll combine these into two because these teams basically just lost, except DePauw beat NCW really easily.  DePauw is back in that range where they are potentially dangerous.  That doesn’t mean that they are dangerous though.  I expect DePauw to be ranked in the mid 20’s for our power rankings and probably around the same for ITA rankings because it’s such a mosh pit in the 20’s.  For NCW, I just wonder if they ate Panera Bread before their first match.  We already found out they curse in Swedutchssian which I’m pretty sure is the most ridiculous thing a commenter has ever said. Yay beeshops!

BONUS: Carnegie Mellon

ICYMI: CMU beat W&L this past weekend, 6-3.  I hated the CMU performance.  They went down once again in doubles, this time to W&L who still hasn’t proven anything this year, other than the fact they can lose to Mary Washington 7-2.  Well, going down in doubles to W&L pretty much stinks.  Not to mention, they lost ANOTHER tiebreaker in doubles.  I don’t want to say it’s a trend, but it’s a trend.  A win is a win, but it may be time to look at some lineup switches in the doubles lineup.  They made a switch at #3 and got a win.  What’s next?

BONUS: Washington & Lee

W&L put in a normal Generals performance.   They came away with a somewhat respectable loss against a top 15 team that no one really thought would amount to anything.  Holt/Shamshiri notched a good win for regionals and Chris Hu notched a really good win against Duncan.  Chris Hu has been a real bright spot this season as he moved up from #5 singles last year to #3 this year.  Again, like I said in earlier previews, W&L is a young team gaining experience.  They’re not the best team this year, but they can stay respectable and just go through the season with the knowledge they will win their conference and eventually make NCAAs.  Status quo for the Generals.