NCAA MEN’S REGIONAL PLAYERS OF THE MONTH: FEBRUARY
Readers, you’re about to witness history. Give yourselves a round of applause. Better yet, give us a round of applause. Today, is the first ever Players of the Month awards. “But D3NE”, you might say. “What’s the big deal?” Well reader, the big deal (other than you speaking like a 1930’s gangster) is that the winners of our prestigious Players of the Month awards will be receiving a free Blog T-Shirt!!! If you are a winner this month, please send me (or your respective blogger) an email (D3Northeast@gmail.com) with your address and prefered size of shirt. If, for some insane reason, you do not wish to receive a shirt, please still email us anyways and tell us so. We like hearing from you. It’s why we do this. If the Player of the Month does not email us within a week, we will tweet an honorable mention for our respective regions that can receive the shirt. If we still get nothing, then the shirts will suffer the same fate as the Patriots 19-0 Super Bowl champion shirts from the Tyree ruined 2007-2008 season.
Anyways, February was a short month, but it must be recognized just the same. Though I’m still freezing my tail off, the first few matches are under our belt and the warm tidings of the spring season are finally upon us. Though the couple weeks after Indoors are not jammed with tennis, most spring breaks are right around the corner! So for now, sit back, enjoy the article, and let your minds wander to a warmer/happier place. As for all you West Coasters, who tweet about 51 degrees being “freezing” (cough…Pomona), just take a second to remember how lucky you all have it. And remember, new Power Rankings come out tomorrow!
A-SOUTH
Player: Rafe Mosetick
Team: Emory
Results: 3-0 Singles at Indoors, 2-1 Doubles at Indoors
Recap: You’ve already read what I have to say about Mosetick a billion times, so I will spare you. Dude was good at Indoor Nationals.
What’s next: Aloha, Hawaii!
Honorary Mention: Kunal Wadwani (Carnegie Mellon), Mike Buxbaum (Hopkins)
Cartoon Character your POTM most resembles: Roger from Doug
Cartoon Character D3AS wanted to be as a kid: Bart Simpson
Cartoon Character D3AS had a crush on as a kid: Kim Possible, this is no contest. No one else needs to answer.
Central
Player: Chris Krimbill
Team: Case Western
Results: 7-0 in singles, 5-2 in doubles
Recap: Going undefeated in singles is enough to get you the player of the month nomination, but doing it against top competition goes to show how good Krimbill is right now. He has wins over the fall national champion Chua, fall ITA Regional winners Al-Houni and Buxbaum, and All-American Wade Heerboth twice where he surrendered two games total in the two matches that he has played him. If that isn’t impressive, then I don’t know what is. No one will argue that he currently is the best player in the country and you could probably say he is the best doubles player in the country as well. While he and partner sit at 5-2 as a tandem, Krimbill can carry Stuerke if needed. When Stuerke is playing at the top of his game, the duo could challenge for a national title which would be Krimbill’s second.
What’s next: A busy week out in California will challenge Krimbill with a match against Wash U before the Stag Hen will give three more quality opponents.It’s early, but right now you have to figure Krimbill to make a late post season run in May.
Honorary Mention: Johnny Wu (Wash U), Kevin Chu (Wash U), Tim Rosensteel (Kenyon)
Cartoon Character your POTM most resembles: West took the only cartoon blonde I can think of with Johnny Bravo, but I will go old school video game and choose Guile from Street Fighter. Zack Morris from Saved By the Bell isn’t a cartoon, but also a choice.
Cartoon Character D3C wanted to be as a kid: Leonardo from TMNT
Cartoon Character D3C had a crush on as a kid: I’ve got nothing
NE
Player: Adam Schwartz
Team: Bates College
Results: 3-0 at 3 dubs, 2-1 at 3 singles,
Recap: Tough decision between Schwartz and Rosen. I’m ok with splitting a Player of the Week award, but a Player of the Month Award? Let’s just say you can’t split a t-shirt two ways. Even though Rosen wasn’t a projected part of the lineup, Schwartz’s wins (especially his Pomona win) came against higher competition. Adam’s straight set win over Graham Maassen was especially impressive given the Sagehen’s solid freshman year. Maassen went 14-8 at #’s 2-4 for Pomona last year, including wins over Chris Lord (graduated Bowdoin #4), Kiril Kirkov (CMU #3/4), Kyle Richter (UCSC #3), and Justin Reindel (graduated Amherst #6). After announcing his presence with a bang, the one they call “Cado” went on to put the beat down on Troy Chavez (Whittier #3), and paired with fellow freshman phenom Rosen to take down both Whittier and CMS’s #3 doubles teams. I said this in the POTW article, and I’ll say it again. What Schwartz and Rosen add to this Bobcat team is depth (a word never associated with Bates). I look forward to seeing if Schwartz will be able to play up to NESCAC competition where he’ll take on the likes of Zykov/Revzin (Amherst), Farrell/Frons (Midd), Raventos (Williams), Roberts (Wesleyan), and many other worthy competitors.
What’s next: Bates will take on Babson on March 6th, travel to MIT the following weekend, and then open up NESCAC play with a possible revenge match vs. Colby on March 17.
Honorary Mention: Ben Rosen (Bates), Matt Heinrich (Stevens), Ben Foran (Stevens)
Cartoon Character your POTM most resembles: Spongebob Squarepants mixed with Chris Lord = Sponge-Lord. Side note, the original plan for Guardians of the Galaxy was to have Adam Schwartz as Sponge-Lord, but (lucky for Chris Pratt) he turned down the role for personal reasons.
Cartoon Character D3NE wanted to be as a kid: Captain Planet
Cartoon Character D3NE had a crush on as a kid: Trixie Tang
WEST
Player: Adam Krull
Team: Trinity (TX)
Results: 5-1 over Indoors, undefeated in doubles this Fall
Recap: I don’t know if you can “back in” to a POTM award, but that’s pretty much what’s happening here. Given the fact that they won Indoors, the player of the month was always going to be a Tiger, and Skinner won the POTW last week. In all seriousness, Krull has been the best player in the West region so far this year. He and the man they used to call “Nemo” are undefeated this Spring in doubles, which is quite a feat considering their schedule (Indoors + Incarnate Word + St. Edwards + Abilene + Tyler JC). He also came up with the HUGE third set win over Ruderman in the championship match to swing it FTB. Without this guy heading leading the charge, we’re talking about a very different Trinity team right now. He give these Tigers some teeth.
What’s next: Same as last week, the Tigers have a match against Tyler JC on Thursday before starting their spring break, which includes matches against Kenyon, CMU, and Cal Lu before they start the Stag-Hen against Whitman.
Honorary Mention: Connor “The Tough Chudder” Hudson (P-P), Colton “I’ve Been Playing #1 For Three Years And I Don’t Have a Nickname” Malesovas (Whitman), Aaron “Arm Sleeve” Skinner (Trinity), Charlie “The Two Hander of Destiny” Curtis (Trinity)
Cartoon Character your POTM most resembles: Johnny Bravo
Cartoon Character D3W wanted to be as a kid: Ash Ketchum
Cartoon Character D3W had a crush on as a kid: This is a weird freaking question, and I’d like to point out that D3Regional has some real Game of Thrones stuff going on with his cartoon character selections.
REGIONAL
Player: Giancarlo Battaglia
Team: Pacific University (OR)
Results: 5-0 so far this year at #1 singles, 1-2 at #1 and #2 doubles
Recap: Pacific has had a good start to their year, going 3-1 in the NWC with a relatively close 6-3 loss to Whitman. I actually predicted the Boxers to be the strongest down at the bottom of the lineup, with big concerns at the top. Battaglia has started the year extremely well, with five good wins at #1, losing only one set. The best win was a straight set win over Zach Hewlin of Whitman, with Colton Malesovas not playing singles after Whitman swept doubles. Battaglia’s singles play is going to be even more important as Pacific moves into their tougher conference schedule (besides Whitman), as they will soon take on Lewis & Clark and George Fox, the two schools most likely to take that #2 spot in the NWC away from the Boxers. Battaglia’s has been in and out of the doubles lineup so far this year, but I’m giving him this award and the coveted t-shirt because of how important this spot in the lineup is for the Boxers.
What’s next: Pacific takes on Lewis & Clark and Linfield next weekend, with a big match against George Fox the weekend after. A southern california trip is also coming in a few weeks, where the Boxers will take on Midd, Cal Tech, RPI, Redlands, and UCSC.
Honorary Mention: Ari Cepelewicz (Swarthmore)
Cartoon Character your POTM most resembles: Ray Rocket
Cartoon Character D3R wanted to be as a kid: Otto Rocket
Cartoon Character D3R had a crush on as a kid: Reggie Rocket
The mention of the Pacific men’s team match against Whitman, and Pacific’s remaining schedule (including against teams in the SCIAC) provides a lead-in to a comment I want to write about the women’s teams from the same conference.
The top three or four men’s and women’s teams in the Northwest Conference seem to be improving, and their increased number of matches against SCIAC teams, compared to prior years, provides a better comparison as to exactly how good they are. Probably pretty good, though depth could be an issue for some.
Over the past two days, I witnessed a number of round robin matches (not quite a true “quad”) that three of the women’s Northwest Conference teams (Whitman, Linfield, and Lewis & Clark, probably among the best four teams in the league, along with Whitworth) played at Whitman, though not against one another, and came away very impressed with their teams and, in particular, their #1 singles players. But I will wait to comment more on this subject when the power rankings for the women come out soon, supposedly later this week.