Excuse us bloggers for taking a day off from Saturday night to Sunday night/Monday morning, as we were exhausted from a long day of blogging on Friday and watching that live stream on Saturday. In fact, I got so much stuff done while not blogging it almost makes me question why I do this… never mind, you guys are awesome. Anyways, three bloggers have come together to give you their Stag-Hen recap. D3West gave his thoughts because he had 4 teams in this tournament. D3Central gave his thoughts because he had 3 teams in the tournament. I gave you my thoughts because I’m nosy and can’t stay out of these national conversations. Plus I guess I just don’t have anything better to do. It’s ASouth, by the way, if you haven’t realized yet, even if I’m not the one posting this article. Time to get to the team-by-team recap format that makes this whole blogging thing so easy.
Winner: CMS
D3West: Here are the facts. CMS did not lose a singles match this tournament. They lost a grand total of three singles sets, and each doubles team lost one match apiece. They have national semifinalists playing 3 and 4 singles, and they have an ITA regional champion riding the pine (typical). There’s really nothing bad you can say about them, so I’m not going to try to. Of all the teams that have played so far, CMS seems to be far and away the best.
As dominant as CMS was here, I think it has to be my job to temper expectations. Let’s all remember that CMS has done this before. Each of the last two years, they lost just one total match in the Stag-Hen. By comparison, I guess you could say this year was a disappointment (kidding). I fully expect the Stags to dominate this regular season, but everything I write from now until mid-May is basically completely pointless. The Stags haven’t lost a regular season dual match against a DIII opponent in almost three years, but we all know about the demons that follow them around. They’ve got a fun, unique Spring Break to look forward to. We’ll see these guys in May.
D3AS: CMS will be CMS. They dominate the regular season and we all ask questions about their playoffs. As our friend Tristan from the booth so graciously pointed out for us, having Dorn at #4 is a great thing. I didn’t know that before. What I saw from this CMS team this weekend was greatness, as I expected. But something else that I saw that I also expected were potential holes in the championship guarantee. CMS is not an unbeatable team. Wood, Butts, and Marino can be challenged hard by the top 3 of a top team. At the bottom, Morkovine and Macey will have their days. It just depends on what day it is. And the best thing I saw was that their doubles was not world-beater, either. This team is the favorite to win the championship right now, but it’s not as much of a longshot as some people to have in their heads. They’d still be my bet by far, but we got a long season ahead of us.
D3Central: I fell victim to all the hype last year with picking CMS as the greatest of all time team. Needless to say I won’t be doing that this year. What I will say is this team is no doubt the most talented team in the country. Talent doesn’t always turn into wins (see Chicago in the last 100 years), but it sure does help. I will admit that I am a bit surprised with CMS in doubles as I thought they would be a bit more dominant, but it isn’t like they struggled. If they shore up this area a bit, they are the heavy favorites to win come May. I do still feel that Morkovine needs to step it up. He has notoriously started matches slow and that is concerning. If you remember last year, Settles pulled Morkovine after doubles in the final. The bench is full of eager players wanting to impress and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Hull consistently in the lineup. Either way, I will steal the PGA tagline when describing the Stags. “These guys are good!”
Runner Up: Pomona-Pitzer
D3West: Obviously, this tournament was overwhelmingly positive for the Sagehens. They put whoopins on two bonafide top 10 teams, and their doubles lineup looks very formidable. Not to disrespect Bates (because they deserve all the credit in the world for winning that match), but I think we can put that loss behind us and recognize that Pomona-Pitzer is clearly a top 8 team at the moment. In my opinion, while they’ve solidified their doubles lineup and their top two singles players, probably for the rest of the year, they still have a lot of work to do on that Revolving Door. I think it might be advisable to give a couple players the reins and say, “Hey, I’m not going to bench you if you lose. Use this month to work on your game. It’s OK to take a step back in order to take three steps forward. I don’t want you looking over your shoulder all year. Relax and play tennis.” I’m not the coach, so that probably won’t happen, but the bottom of P-P’s lineup has some big-time Bambi-eyes right now.
Wins over CMU, Bowdoin, Case, and Trinity will go a long way towards getting them into the postseason, but they’ve got another big week ahead of them. They have to make sure they don’t underestimate Skidmore, Tufts, and Trinity (CT) because all three teams could be dangerous, and they’re playing them all as double-headers. Their match against Amherst is obviously the biggest one of the week, and we’ll preview that later, but ultimately, I think it’s most important for them to hold serve by taking down those three top 30 teams.
D3AS: I asked the two Sagehens that were in the booth what had changed since their loss to Bates on twitter. One thing stood out to me. “We realized that we’re not good enough to take a day off or match off and expect to beat teams that are anywhere close to the top 20.” The Sagehens have brought their A game to every match since. Pomona is lucky to have gotten that wake up call so early in the season and with this level of play, they are a top 8 team. They will make it extremely hard for the ITA committee to make them a #2 seed in the West Region when they eventually make it. I feel bad for them if they do, because this is a team with Elite 8 and dare I say it, Final 4 potential.
D3Central: My knowledge of the Sagehens is a bit low so I am not going to go too in depth with my analysis of the team. If they keep up the great doubles play, they will be dangerous to anyone not named CMS. I will say that although Chuddy has shown that he can win the big matches and three set marathons at 1, I don’t think I would be alone in my opinion that Yasgoor is the better player. The question the coach is probably asking himself is are the sagehens better if they leave Chuddy at 1 giving them a virtual lock at #2? I think the answer to that question is yes. See Wash U last season when Carswell was at 2 and Putterman stayed at 1.
3rd Place: Wash U
D3West: I’ll leave the bulk of the Wash Uanalysis to D3Central. All and all, I would say it was a ho hum tournament. The Bears got two nice wins this tournament, but anything less would have been a major disappointment. Probably the thing Wash U will be thinking about most is how far they were from even putting a scare into the Stags. I know the Bears fancy themselves national championship contenders, but they clearly have a long way to go.
D3AS: All that you guys really need to know about Wash U is that the sleeping bear has awoken. This is another team that needed that early season wake up call, which they got at Indoors. They came out and smoked Kenyon and took out Trinity TX. While both teams were hurting from long spring breaks, they are still high quality wins. The most important thing by far and I’m sure the other bloggers will mention is that John Carswell might be slowly getting back to us from his vacation. He took out an injured Heerboth and overall just looked better than he has all season. A healthy and on point Carswell is the key to Wash U’s season, and I like his chances.
D3Central: While I totally agree with West in his analysis that the Bears are a long way off from CMS, I disagree that this was a ho hum tournament for Wash U. I think they should be pretty happy with their results. Putterman and Bush are back on their game going undefeated at the top doubles spot against Kenyon, CMS, and Trinity. Carswell isn’t quite back to last season’s form, but he at least is looking better. If he continues to progress, that is going to be a huge thing for the team moving forward. The Bears are still looking for a consistent #3 doubles team, but they are starting to turn things around there.
A big thing of note here is that Wash U didn’t play their full lineup against any of the 3 teams. They sat out one player each match giving Kratky a rest against Kenyon, Bush a rest against CMS, and Chu a rest against Trinity. It was great to see freshman Jason Haugen step up and give solid performances in all three matches to make Wash U not miss a beat. I think this was a great strategy for Coach Follmer to keep his guys fresh, but at the same time keep winning in mind. Overall, I think this puts Wash U in the top 4 in the country for the rest of the season.
4th Place: Trinity (TX)
D3West: For Trinity, the damage was done before this tournament even started. The loss to CMU clearly delegitimized them in the eyes of the ITA committee, who seemed to be looking for a reason to drop the Tigers. Now that they have, they’re not going to go much further down by losing to the Hens and the Bears. As long as they finish the season in the top 7 (or top 8 if P-P stays ahead of them), Trinity is doing just fine because they’ll be the favorite in whatever region they end up in, and they won’t have the Stags waiting for them in the Elite Eight. This is all insanely speculative, but I really don’t think this tournament made much of a difference for TU. They got the win that they absolutely needed by beating Whitman, and that’s about it. In the end the Tigers look SO TIRED at the end of this tournament. I know they love the battle, but I bet they’re glad a little bit glad that it’s over.
D3AS: Let me tell you something right now. Trinity TX is a national title contender. There’s no reason to be worried about their losses to CMU, PP, and Wash U. When you see a team battling to the very end against a fresh Bears team, you don’t question the fight that these guys have. The Guru and I both agree that this team has the goods to take out CMS when it all comes down to it. Could you not see a 2-1 Trinity lead, with a wins by Krull and Skinner, and maybe Charlie Curtis at #5? I can see it. These guys are the scrappiest team in the top 10 and that’s a feather in their cap when it comes down to NCAA week. Be wary of the TIgers, because they are just building the experience and the intensity needed to play in the NCAA tournament.
D3Central: Give these boys a week off. I don’t know what their schedule looks like coming up, but they need some time to rest and rejuvenate the momentum they had coming off of the Indoors win. I am not terribly worried about them as they will make the tournament either way, but they have to keep rankings in mind as they want to get that coveted top seed to give them the best road to Cincinnati come May. Coming out of indoors, I was extremely impressed with them. They have shown some vulnerability as of late. I am still a big fan of Krull and think he will be a factor when individuals rolls around.
5th Place: Case Western
D3West: Well, I can say that the Spartans aren’t making themselves any friends. The West has become so jovial that having the Spartans around reminds me a little bit of the old-time Chicago and Emory teams. Everybody loves a good bad guy, Case likes to toe the line between loud/supportive and antagonistic/thuggish, but they gleefully leapt over that line against Wesleyan.
Tennis-wise, I respect the heck out of these guys. We keep wanting and wanting and wanting to discredit the Spartans, but they’re just not going to go away. With Krimbill and Drougas up top, this team is so eerily similar to the Cal Lu teams of old, I was having flashbacks. These guys are only going to improve throughout the year. Moving forward, the #1 priority for them has to be beating CMU. They missed out on renewing their rivalry at Indoors, but they’ve got a regular season match coming up that will be gargantuan for Pool C because I don’t think there’s going to be enough room in there for both of them this year.
D3AS: I know the other two bloggers will mention it, but I will stay away from the “off court” discussion that people are having about this team. I will stick to the tennis because that is what I like to blog about. I will let the rest of that stuff figure it out. Case Western is a team that is matchup-based. If they play a team that is deeper than them from 3-6, it’s tough for them to win matches because they have to scrap out whatever they can get. Krimbill is close to automatic but he’s not fully automatic. Drougas is a top #2 but he’s not unbeatable either. Case’s chances every match come down to a few wild cards – how is their doubles matching up, and how are their top 2 feeling that day. It’s a tough line to toe and D3West mentioned it reminds him of the old CLU teams. I expect Coach Todd to really focus his attention on the bottom of the lineup and hopefully get the ailing Fojtasek back at some point this season. If he does or someone really improves, this team’s formula is clear. Win the doubles, go with your big guns, and grind out that last point. We’ll see how this strategy works in the deep field of DIII that we have today.
D3Central: I would like to say that I am surprised to hear about the actions of Case and the on/off court manners, but I am not. It’s one thing to be hated because you are loud and supportive, but it is another for being complete (insert any expletive you choose). I have personally witnessed it and I just don’t understand it. Some of these kids are great kids off the court, but when the team gets together and coach Todd allows such despicable manners, you can’t expect 18-22 year olds kids to be respectful of the game and of their opponents. It is time for some life lessons to be learned from a sport that gives so much back to the players when it is respected. I hope to see a change, but unfortunately I don’t see it happening.
Doubles looked a bit better for the Spartans this weak (except for the sweep against Pomona), but I still think this weakness really hurts Case. Krimbill is flat out a baller and will be favored against anyone he plays from here on out. His loss to Carswell earlier in the week is somewhat discredited considering it wasn’t a full third set. It seems they have found some more consistent players to fill the back end of the lineup in Chen and Van Lent which pushed Dughi out of the starters. I still think they are weak there, but at least have found a solution for now. Their upcoming schedule has nothing important except for the CMU match in the first week of April. UAAs will also be huge for this team.
6th Place: Wesleyan
D3West: It was only a matter of time before the Cards got the win that would push them into the top 20, and they were very opportunistic this weekend, picking off an ailing Kenyon team. I’m sure they feel they could’ve come away with the Redlands and Case Western matches, but they got the one program-defining sort of win that will officially boost these guys into the upper echelon of DIII tennis. Moreover, they don’t have a single upperclassman in their singles lineup, so we can expect good things from these guys in the years to come. Any faint Pool C hopes they might have had were dashed by their two losses, but I’ll be circling the weekend of the 28th because I can’t wait to see what these guys can do against Bowdoin and Bates.
D3AS: I know that the other bloggers will hit on Wesleyan’s tennis and how they are a great team with lots of young guys and potential. So, I will take a bit of a detour and touch on their last match against Case Western. I realize that it’s a tough situation. But, I’ve heard from other accounts that the Cards didn’t handle this match the best way possible from a tennis perspective. I don’t want to rag on a team that I like and I think is respectful, but up here in the top 15, you better get ready for some fireworks. Winning teams do that. A young team that’s never played in this situation before will not react well to adversity at first. But, don’t be surprised next time you’re here if stuff like this happens again. Next time, I hope you’re ready and you let your rackets do the talking, because that’s the best way to prove your point.
D3Central: Ah I find so many similarities between the Cards and Chicago, but the difference is I like the upside of Wesleyan. They are a dangerous team without question and one that could potentially ruin opponents Pool C chances, but I still see them one year away from making any real impact. A year of college tennis and the experience that it will give should propel them on to the national spotlight. They don’t have the negative past results of Chicago to haunt them either which is a great thing.
7th Place: Kenyon
D3West: You just can’t say enough about the way these guys battle. I know the Wesleyan loss will probably knock these guys from the top ten, but when they are healthy, they are clearly very legitimately a top ten team. Turlington has really come into his own, and Geier is playing amazing. Huber and Thrailkill give the Lords all they needed in terms of depth, and they fight better than just about anyone in DIII. Even though I picked it, I was still really impressed with how they beat Whitman today. If they can get healthy and shore up their doubles lineup a little bit, they could be a team that the Wash U’s and Emory’s of the world really won’t want to meet in the Elite Eight.
D3AS: Half of Kenyon’s team was battling injuries, fatigue, or some other ailment and they were still able to notch a top 15 win. Kudos to Thielke and the boys in purple because this was an impressive performance in terms of sheer determination. This is a team with great chemistry, fight, and resolve. However, it’s not necessarily all good things for the Lords. They need to figure out their doubles a bit and they need to figure out the bottom of the lineup for anyone not named Davis Thrailkill. Which, by the way, I’m pretty sure no one else is named. Kenyon has already beaten my expectations this year and with the way I’ve seen them grow so far this year, some of these potential #1 and #2 seeds in NCAAs better be praying they don’t get thrown into the fire that is a Kenyon hosted regional.
D3Central: I think the key to Kenyon and the results they have gotten as of late has actually been Tim Rosensteel. He missed some action early in the year, but having him back makes the Lords deeper in doubles and makes them even more formidable at the back half of the singles lineup. Rosensteel got the only win against Wash U defeating Bush in 3 sets. When fully healthy, Rosensteel pushes Huber to #5 singles where he is better suited and puts Thrailkill at 6 which makes him a threat there. West touted Turlington as a key player, but I am backing Rosensteel as the player that has changed everything. If Heerboth and Geier can get healthy and get some points at the top of the lineup, the Lords will be tough to upset. Depauw and Denison shouldn’t threaten them either way, but Kenyon should hope to keep their ranking in the 10-15 range in order to be a solid #2 seed in May. The Wesleyan loss isn’t great, but considering how hobbled Kenyon was, I think they performed pretty well to come back and beat a much fresher Whitman team.
8th Place: Whitman
D3West: I already tore into Whitman in my finals preview, and that’s enough of that. I expect these Whitman freshmen will learn from this and remember to chug a bottle of Pedialyte before hot matches and maybe stretch after every practice (talking to players, I’m stunned by how few people really stretch). I know they had really tough circumstances, but you can always make up for that with hard work. On the court, they were not the boisterous and supportive team that they once were. Perhaps this is the new team culture with the swath or newbies, but I think it really hurt them this weekend not to be louder up and down the lineup.
In the realm of tennis things, the DIII tennis gods placed a gift in their lap with that match against a hobbled Kenyon team, and they couldn’t take advantage of it. Malesovas couldn’t find the same magic he had at home, their #3 doubles situation is abysmal, their freshmen haven’t reached the level of fitness that is necessary, and they’re not playing with the same energy and noise that they used to. The good news is that their #2 team of Hewlin and Hoeger seems to have gotten things together, and Jivkov is playing quite well. They can salvage an OK Spring Break by beating Bowdoin, which would probably be enough to get them back into the top 15, but that’s a tall order. The Polar Bears look TOUGH.
D3AS: The only question I have for Whitman now is how will they bounce back from an extremely disappointing tournament. Whether that be due to circumstances that they can’t control, or their own play, they need to bounce back. This is a team that is based and grounded on hard work, fitness, and grittiness. I didn’t see much of Whitman this weekend so I don’t know if that’s something that failed them, but the results speak for themselves. Whitman needs to learn to play outside of the confines of Walla Walla and really take it to a top team. There’s a reason Whitman has taken a back seat in the national conversation and it’s not because they are geographically isolated. Trinity TX seems to fare just fine. They take a back seat because they have never had a marquee win in program history. Why is this, you may ask? I am not sure. But, Whitman needs to find that day where they go above and beyond and take it to an unexpecting team telling themselves “We’ll probably win 6-3 against these guys” before a match. I can guarantee you there are teams that say that. Let’s see what Whitman’s got the rest of the year, because it’s a bad start for them so far.
D3Central: Fortunately I have had a full 48 hours to calm down from Friday’s debacle that was Whitman and their choices. I still think it is necessary to be critical of these guys and West did a good job of explaining shortcomings I still don’t understand what happened this weekend and really just want to rip into them, but because I respect the coach and the program, I will leave that alone. As for the tennis that was played, I am extremely worried about Whitman. Yes they lost to three very good teams so on the surface it really isn’t a big deal. They will still win their conference and get the AQ. If I am a potential opponent of Whtiman in May, I would be salivating at the chance to upset a team ranked higher. I am not sure I can name a strength of this team right now. The only guy I can say I have any faith in at this point is James Rivers. He has helped at the top doubles spot and is a very good #6. The rest of the team is capable of winning matches, but also capable of laying an egg. I expect Bowdoin to handle them with relative ease.
Well, there you have it folks. The official and only Stag-Hen recap that you will see on the internet. We’ll have another big week for you coming up, with all kinds of articles, including NE’s State of the Region and hopefully my Pool C historical article. I plan on making that thing an epic. Until next time folks. ASouth, West, and Central… OUT.
I had the opportunity to take in the first day of action at the Stag-Hen. What I saw were good competitive matches all around. While I would much rather comment on the quality of tennis I was able to watch, I unfortunately feel more compelled to comment on the Case behavior controversy.
Based on my time spent at the P-P courts on Friday, I saw zero behavior from the Case team that was comment worthy. Was Case the loudest of the bunch? Yes. But it all seemed to be standard cheering of their own teammates, not harassment of their opponent. And to the comment of cheering DURING points, yes inevitably with 6 matches being played concurrently, cheering will occur DURING points.
Nearly every team at the tournament seemed to have a large roster that came on the trip. I think that is great that these coaches are rewarding the kids with a trip to sunny SoCal that do not play line up, but still put in a ton of work and sacrifice for their respective programs. And if I am the coach and I decide to bring 15 or more players on the trip, do you know what I expect the players that are on the bench to do? Bring the energy! The only portion of the Whitman-Case match that I saw was the doubles portion. And I saw every single Case player engaged in the match, pulling for their teammates, and willing their team to victory. Meanwhile, as matches were reaching their critical end, the majority of Whitman’s bench (which appeared to be about 20 deep) was not even paying attention to the action on the court. To me, that is behavior that merits being “taken to the woodshed”.
In the morning matches, I witnessed P-P’s #benchmob beat Case’s in bringing energy, noise, and momentum to the match.
Now I was not able to attend the Saturday matches, and some of the comments I am hearing are certainly disturbing. Given the diversity on Case’s own team, I doubt these racial/homophobic comments represent the viewpoint of this team. I do understand how a group of young, male teammates can cross line when it comes to trying to influence a match. These kids are young, and as a result, I always like to be slow to judgement and establishing an opinion. If Case continues to be a boisterous, hardworking, gritty team. Great… I think there is room in D3 tennis for this type of team. However if the behavior (based on the comments on this site) of their Wesleyan match becomes the norm, I have to say, I will be very disappointed in this program.
Wandered around some of the matches on Friday and watched Case play some against Whitman and a little against Wesleyan. Did not witness the altercation described in comments above, which one witness said reached the “early pushing” stage.
However, the one match I watched between Case and Whitman seemed to correlate with the aggressive behavior described in prior comments, in that I am sure that I saw at least four calls where I was certain the Whitman ball, landing just in front of me, was in but was called out, all within a 30 – 40 minute span. Other watchers of that match agreed with me.
Later, in the same Case player’s match against Wesleyan, I heard some grumbling among a few Wesleyan fans of questionable line calls (though in more vivid terms)..
I was informed, during my stay at the matches, that some tennis academies teach their players to call all (or most) balls on the line out. Obviously, I don’t know who those players are.
Since I only watched part of one Case player’s match against Whitman and Wesleyan, I cannot say at all whether his tendency, in my opinion, to make questionable line calls, is matched by his teammates, but if I were a coach playing Case, given their growing reputation as being aggressive in just about everything they do, I would instruct my players to not be shy in challenging a call they don’t think was correct when there is a linesman calling their match. I find almost all teams call the balls on their side very fairly, and with few challenges of the calls (much less than in high school), but those teams are at a big disadvantage when their opponent doesn’t follow the same policy.
Isn’t the theme of this blog “let the rackets do the talking?” Sure case was talking smack, but there rackets backed it up big time by winning rather convincingly. I have no side in this beef but I just find it rather amusing that a bunch of you are complaining about how case is winning. If you want them to stop acting like assholes, beat them and shut them up instead of posting passive aggressive tweets and running to a blog to “tattle on the big bad bully”
WOW…I am missing the passive/aggressive piece…nobody WANTS to talk about Case’s behavior. That being said, there is NO defense for bullying,racism,homophobia…Sure winning is always great revenge but that philosophy does not justify the kind of behavior which Case displayed. That behavior cannot be condoned under any scenario. I am watching Azarenka-Sharapova so I am letting it go. As an educator, I particularly hope the Case coach learns. I would think recent events in professional sports and the larger society would make all this obvious. There is talking smack and there is racism and bullying. We should know the difference!!!!
Well, one could just as easily argue that Case needs to let their rackets do the talking–that they’re being loud and obnoxious rather than getting the job done on the court. In fact, this was always a knock against the old Chicago teams (that they were loud rather than letting their rackets do the talking.) It also seems to me that you’ve exaggerated Case’s success at the Stag-Hen; they may have beaten Wesleyan 7-2, but they also didn’t manage to play to their seed and the Whitman victory was against half of their regular lineup. Finally, this is clearly not a situation of players rushing to “tattle on the big bad bully”; these aren’t Wesleyan/Whitman players commenting, they’re people who were at the matches to watch and were appalled by behavior that was a good standard deviation beyond acceptable standards.
“i have no side in this beef” is hilarious
If case was using homophobic or racist slurs then you are correct, but given the fact that they have Asian, Indian, and African American players starting for them, I have a hard time believing that is part of their culture. If it is part of their culture, why would all these guys be willing to play for a team that supports that lack of tolerance? it’s college sports man, if you can’t handle some smack talking when you want to fire it up, then I suggest you go do something other than take part in COMPETITION. Go ask some major college football players what they say to each other in the pile of a competitive game, I can guarantee its 100x worse than anything some case tennis players said.
i personally wasn’t commenting on the slurs/trash talk, i was just commenting on you saying you have no side of this beef. IP addresses are a great thing ;). I have no particular view on the discussion that’s at hand. Don’t worry about me, I’m simply observing.
CMS and PP were great hosts who both played with class and dignity. Lets not let a bunch of Case thugs ruin what was otherwise a terrific weekend of tennis. Karma has a way of working things out. Although I was deeply saddened by some racist homophobic comments, i have faith that these young impressionable Case kids will one day see the light. Yes, Leadership starts at the top Coach.
Amen…I love loud, boisterous teams. Kenyon comes to mind but their cheering is just loud and supportive. Wesleyan and Whitman the same way. Case’s cheering had an angry, hostile almost Oklahoma frat party quality.. Let me be clear. Neither Kenyon, Wesleyan or Whitman was perfect either. However, their coaches would intervene and take a player to the wood shed if necessary. With Case, it was the wild west and the coach appeared to be an active participant. The play and behavior of hosts CMS and Pomona was of the highest order…classy hosts. I hope my comments do not have a ” passive/aggressive ” tone. As Judge Potter once remarked about pornography, ” I know it when I see it ” , I felt Case’s cheering was more about bullying than being about school spirit…But , yes, time to move on.
I felt the need to chime in on this as someone who went to the Stag-hen to watch some old friends. I’m of the opinion that loud cheering and even a little heckling is okay at times, but what happened at that match was way over the line. A few of the Case Western players were taking unprovoked verbal shots at Wesleyan players who were sitting outside the fence watching the matches. I heard a few of the Case players calling them names, swearing at them and saying their “tennis program is a piece of garbage and they don’t deserve to be in the tournament” etc.
On a separate note, the tournament was fantastic and all 5 of the teams I watched battled extremely hard in their matches. Great tennis all-around.
This website went from #benchmob at Indoors to #golfclap at Stag-Hen real quick.
Personally as a Case alum, I’m loving all the drama generated from this tournament from the passive-aggressive comments from the Wesleyan twitter to the rapidly building rivalry between Case and Kenyon (Who cheers against teams that they aren’t currently playing and haven’t played all tournament? That’s some serious hate and it’s awesome). Nothing validates the program more than going from a scrappy, loud underdog to actual rivalries with teams that have been perennially some of the top in the nation.
NWI Case Alum: “That’s some serious hate and it’s awesome.” NWI applauds taunts, racist slurs, (fill in the rest) because it fuels hate and rivalries? Wow. Sports reveal the character of participants, the best that we can be individually and for our teammates. The reason I love this blog is that it elevates the sport and all D3 participants. NWI Case Alum certainly illustrates the unique approach at CWRU – hate is the extra man.
Do you think Michigan hates OSU? Do you think Urban Meyer banned blue shirts from his conferences because he likes Michigan? Of course not, “hate” here is on the field and having Kenyon cheer against Case is a great show of competition between two top tier programs. How can you not appreciate that?
I was not at Stag-Hen and so I can’t comment on their behavior there but at other matches that I have watched (such as Indoors), Case has been loud, boisterous, and still respectful.
Rivalries are great, and Case generally does a pretty good job of being loud and boisterous without being disrespectful and thuggish. I’m a big fan of noisy support, but, as Coach Belletto pointed out one time in a comment, it’s really easy to cross the line once you allow yourself to be loud. I don’t know what it was about the match with Wesleyan that pushed your boys over the line, but they were pretty out of control.
The fact that not only Kenyon, but also Whitman and others started cheering for Wesleyan is not illustrative of a budding rivalry. Rather, it shows that your boys lost control for a match at least. Hopefully it doesn’t happen in the future
To be completely transparent, I attended the StagHen to watch a number of San Diego kids who play for CMS and Wesleyan so if there is a tinch of bias so be it. I will try to be as objective as possible…So here goes a few general responses to your terrific blog: First, teams tend to reflect the personalities of their coaches. CMS is a relatively calm, thoughtful, well-behaved team. If they win a national title, it will be the Stag way… old school…like the old Aussie Davis Cup teams, with their racquets. When Wesleyan played CMS, the match was passionate but respectful. Now think of the CMS coach. Now take Case..in all three do their matches, they used their crowd as sixth man approach. Their crowd is loud in a bullying kind of way…yelling DURING the points, unkind comments to other crowd members. Now think of the Case coach who as you put it seems to encourage and rejoice in the bullying nature of his team/spectators. It was interesting that both the Kenyon and Whitman teams were cheering for Wesleyan which I couldn’t figure out until one of the players ” filled me in ” about Case…Yes, Wesleyan did not handle it well but as you implied, they will learn….Regarding the tennis, CMS looks ready to win it all. Their singles is simply awesome and I do not think they will break down under pressure. And I really like Macey at 6 singles..a real grinder. Their doubles still needs a little work but I think CMS is poised to win it all in their relatively calm, old school style…And Wesleyan is a year away but could be a top 4 team in two years. Considering this was their very first time on the national stage, they competed hard and got that signature win…very young and inexperienced but unless I were a top 5 team, I would not want to meet them….Beyond all that, a shoutout to CMS and Pomona for staging this wonderful event…ps…very strange walking back and forth between CMS-PP match and the Case-Wesleyan matches..what a difference in the atmospheres….GO D3 tennis…
I’d be surprised if there was any team Case played this weekend and didn’t think they were (any expletive would work). Leadership starts at the top. Coach Todd maybe a great guy, but he clearly supports the off-court antics or it would stop in a heartbeat. I’ve seen other coaches take their players to the woodshed for throwing their racquet. Believe me, the behavior goes away quickly if the coach doesn’t want it. Watching how rampant it was in many of their matches, I’d say Coach Todd sees it proverbial “sixth man”.