Preseason Rank: #3
Location: San Antonio, TX
Coach: Russell McMindes (6th Season)
Introduction:
Now it’s time to give the Texas region a little love and first up are the Trinity Tigers. I am pretty excited this year to see how the West region as a whole will represent itself in NCAA’s, as we will have at least 3 top ten caliber teams with CMS, PP, and Trinity (according to the blog power rankings). Out of those three, the team I am most looking forward to watching are the Tigers. With the addition of Krull and the dominance of their doubles, they really do look like a team who has a shot at a national title. Last year’s tournament saw the big cats closer to the title than most people expected, just barely losing to the eventual champs by a score of 5-4 and I think they are going to be even better this year. They made an impressive run in the fall with the addition of a National’s doubles title to their name (Skinner and Mayer), and had a decent showing from Krull in singles. Any way you swing it, these guys are going to be both a doubles AND singles powerhouse this year, with a pretty good chance of stealing the title for themselves. Trinity will have nearly Stag-level strength at their top 4 singles positions and some very solid doubles teams at the 1 and 2 spots. You can expect them to be getting a lot of points from all these positions this year. Now enough hype, lets take look at their lineup.
Key Losses: Nicolas Moreno (ended at #3 singles, #1 doubles) Greg Haugen (ended at #2 singles, #2 Doubles)
Key Additions: Adam Krull
#1 Singles: Paxton Deuel
This guy has been a rock in the Tiger’s lineup since his debut two years ago and even though he was knocked out a little early in both individuals (first round) and the Regional tourney (lost in the Semis) I still think he has got the stuff for the stuff for the top of the lineup. Both Deuel and Krull could do well at this position, but for the sake of tradition I am gonna pick Deuel to start off the season at #1. That being said, don’t be too surprised if he and Krull get swapped around at the 1 spot to try to get both players into Nationals.
#2 Singles: Adam Krull
Krull, the junior transfer from Xavier, ran his way through the Fall Regional singles draw without dropping a set. He didn’t quite live up to the hype in Sumter, going down in the first round to Matthew Heinrich from Stevens, but all in all a pretty damn good debut in D3. He is a tall all court player, who isn’t afraid of the net, so expect to see a lot of checks in the win column wherever he ends up playing. Without this transfer, The Tigers would have had a tough time finding replacements for their graduating seniors Moreno and Haugen. But with Krull, they might be better than ever.
#3 Singles: Aaron Skinner
Skinner, last year’s defending Fall tournament champion, started last spring off by playing #2 for the Tigers where he struggled a bit against the higher ranked opponents. He then dropped to 3 for the stretch of California matches, where he found a bit more success but ended the season at the #4 position. To be honest, last season was bit of a mixed bag for Skinner, but I think that this year with the help of some newfound doubles confidence, he will be a much more solid at the 3 position.
#4 Singles: Jordan Mayer
Jordan Mayer is one of those players who is an absolute nightmare to play, he relentlessly rushes the net and brings a ton of fire. Last season he was incredibly dominant at the 5 spot, with most of his wins being veritable beat downs. The usual player you see around the 5 and 6 spots are the grinder types who run a lot of balls down but don’t have too much firepower of their own, and he had a field day beating up on them. It’s going to be a little bit different moving up to the #4 spot, and he will probably lose a few more matches, but this will most likely be the Tiger’s most consistent singles lineup point.
#5 Singles: Charlie Curtis
This spot is where the Tigers will have a little bit of a drop off when playing the higher ranked teams, but will most likely still be dangerous. Curtis had a pretty solid season playing #6 last year, going roughly 50/50 during the Tiger’s run at nationals. And since the jump from 5 to 6 is not usually a very large one. I expect a similar performance from Curtis playing at #5.
#6 Singles: Connor Dunn
The 6 spot will probably be the most vulnerable position of the 6 for Trinity, and will most likely be the place where other teams will be looking to grab some wins. This isn’t to say the position will be weak, but it will probably be a little less dominant than the rest of the Tiger’s powerhouse lineup. Dunn is a solid player, with a big serve and had some close matches with some the top 6’s in the country, including CMS, Wash U, and PP. I don’t know if he was injured last season or swapped from the lineup since he didn’t play during their National’s run, but I expect to see him back in action in the next couple of weeks.
Doubles:
Fall doubles was a huge success for the Tigers, they had two teams in the finals of their regional, Deuel/Krull and Skinner/Mayer, with the winner of that match going on to win Fall Nationals. So they will be very strong at both the 1 and 2 doubles position, if I had to venture a guess I would say that Skinner/Mayer start the year at 1 doubles with Deuel/Krull at the #2 spot. The #3 position is unclear, but judging by the pairings in the Fall tournament it will either be Neiss/Curtis or Dunn/Diaz. Neither of those teams will be a walk in the park for any team so as usual the big strength of the Tigers is going to be their doubles play. Look out for a bunch of leads after doubles from these guys.
Schedule Analysis:
http://trinitytigers.com/sports/mten/2014-15/schedule
Trinity has always had an interesting schedule and this year looks to be no different. They start of their year with a couple of matches against Texas schools I am largely unfamiliar with before making their way to Indoor Nationals with a first round match-up against Gustavus. They are favored at every position against the Gusties, so the Tigers shouldn’t have too much trouble making it past them. Trinity’s is going to be against 1 of four teams depending on how they are seeded and who ends up winning; Emory, Carnegie, Hopkins or Case. No matter who their opponent is, Trinity is going to have a tough match due to both their opponents and that this will undoubtedly be their first time playing indoor tennis this year and indoor tennis is an entirely different game. Wash U will most likely be on the other side of the draw with the #2 seed with Kenyon as a first round. Honestly, this tournament is going to be crazy with so many closely ranked teams.
After Indoors, there is about a 2 and a half week lull before they head out to Claremont, CA for their spring break. This break is where they will play the majority of their important matches, starting with Kenyon, Carnegie and Cal Lu. They are avoiding a direct match with both PP and CMS and instead opt to play just in the Stag-Hen tournament. Now I know I may be a little biased, but I really do believe that this Stag Hen is going to be the most important tournament of the year for a lot of different teams. With the Pool-C changes, a lot of teams are going to be looking to secure their spots with a couple of big wins. Trinity, though, doesn’t have too much to lose during this tournament and will most likely be looking to crush some seasons/dethrone CMS. After the Stag-Hen, the Tigers will go back and bake in the Texas heat until the post-season, their biggest competition will be UT-Tyler who I doubt will be able to handle Trinity’s powerhouse lineup.
Conclusion:
It’s always interesting to me to see that the regular season doesn’t have a huge effect on the Tigers post-season chances. It’s very likely that they will at least make the finals of Indoors, maybe losing to Wash U in the title match which I think is probably a 50/50. They might drop the match to Carnegie in March (but I wouldn’t bet on it), and have a fairly good chance of making the finals in the Stag Hen with maybe a 40% chance of beating the Stags in the finals if the time is right. That will leave them with a ranking of around 3 or maybe 2 if Amherst drops off a bit, which is likely given who they graduated. But once again, I don’t think that will matter too much as they are almost guaranteed a ticket to the post-season (out of the CMS regional) where they have a legitimate chance to win it all if everyone stays healthy and motivated. If I had to pick a team to watch in the West, it would definitely be the Tigers. D3 West Tennis, out.