Happy beginning of October, boys and girls! Welcome to Part II of the New England ITA Recap. If you missed Part I, check it out here. Nothing against the teams that didn’t get mentioned in Part I, I just didn’t think people would read the recap if it was 2x as long as what’s already up there. Shorter intro this time, but I’ll touch on the important things from Part I.
1) My preview article was probably my best ever in terms of the athletes I talked about. Feel free to show me some love.
2) The Blog only wants what is best for DIII tennis. We probably love it a little too much. If you don’t like what we have to say about you, your teammate, or fellow player, please use it as motivation. In order to bring you the best coverage of DIII tennis, we can’t be all full of rainbows and unicorns all the damn time.
3) Let the mediocre grades commence…
TRINITY CT
The Good: Glickman and Traff. As these guys were the only Bantams in the whole tournament, this section will be simple. Luckily, both guys did better at the ITA than at Midd earlier in September, and it leaves me thinking that while Trinity won’t be very good this year, they will be able to hang at the top. Glickman was a top prospect who didn’t get to play last year due to injury, and Traff is a doubles talent who has worked hard over his time in Hartford to improve his singles game. Glickman took down Barr, one of the talented MIT freshmen, before getting taken to the woodshed by Chen (Wesleyan #2). Traff beat an ailing Shastri in the 1ev round, and pushed Rosen (Bates #1-3) to two tough sets in the second round. The doubles result was the best part of the weekend for the Bants. Traff/Glickman made a semifinal run including a nice win over Trinka/Tercek (Bowdoin’s #1 team).
The Not So Good: Where is the rest of this team?! The idea that Traff and Glickman were the only guys from Trinity really speaks volume to the lack of depth these guys will struggle with this year.
ITA Grade/One Sentence Summary: B-. Not the exact result either guy was hoping for, but considering the expectations they did well (and this grade only reflects the people playing in the tournament).
BATES
The Good: Top singles players? Ben Rosen and Fergus Scott both impressed over the weekend, but the question mark in the initial sentence refers to the idea of Rosen and Scott playing some combination of 1 and 2 for the Bobcats. Rosen played #5 last year, and Scott played his best tennis at #3 for Cal Lu. The idea that these two guys could be the top players for the Cats is pretty far out of left field, but their ITA results back it up. Rosen took down Tyler Ng (Brandeis freshman) and Ford Traff (Trinity #1-2) in the first two rounds before pushing #4 Smolyar (Midd #1) to a 4&5 defeat. Scott took care of Smith (Nichols) 1&2 in the first round and then handled #9-16 Solimano (Amherst #2-3) 1&1 in one of the biggest upsets of the tournament. Fergus lost in the 3rd round to Cauneac (MIT #1-2) 5&4.
The Not So Good: The doubles. Yes, Rosen and Ordway got a win over Wheaton in the 1st round, but they got bounced by Raventos/Schidlovsky (Williams #1) 8-4 in the second round. Bates’ other team of Quijano/Leiner lost in the first round to Trinka/Tercek (Bowdoin #1), 8-4. One of Bates’ biggest keys to success over the past few years has been really strong doubles. Having no Planche (graduated) and no Ellis (abroad?) this fall really hurts their doubles.
ITA Grade/One Sentence Summary: B-. Above average singles, below average doubles, but can Bates actually field a team that relies on depth?
WESLEYAN
The Good: Steven Chen/singles. Chen must love this tournament. The runner-up as a freshman, Steven followed up his 2014 performance with a run to the semifinals in 2015. He did benefit from Yaraghi pulling out, as Andrew was the seed in his draw, but he got past Glickman (Trinity Ct #2), Jackson (Midd #4-6), and Granoff (Brandeis #1) before falling to Farrell (Midd #2) in the semis. Jake Roberts and Joachim Samson were other Cardinals with good singles results. Roberts made the 3rd round, and took down #9-16 Telkedzhiev (Tufts #1) in what was probably the best match of the tournament, 9-7 in the 3rd set tiebreak. Samson, the lone Cardinal freshman in the tournament, knocked out #7 Luke Trinka (Bowdoin #1) 3&1 in the first round! It must have taken a lot out of him, because Samson had to default his 2nd round match vs. Van Der Geest (Midd #7). Liu also notched a 1st round win against last year’s tournament darling Zach Hall (Gordon #1), but was upset by Raghavan (Williams #4-5) in the 2nd round.
The Not So Good: Doubles. This is starting to sound familiar. Solid singles performance, with no doubles to back it up. I know that Liu was originally supposed to be paired with Brint, but that’s no excuse for two early round doubles losses from the Card pairings. The two teams suffered an 8-4 loss to Campbell/Smolyar (Midd #1) and a 9-7 loss to Hillier/Speer (Colby #2). Wesleyan had the depth last year, but it was tough considering they were down in most matches after doubles. Let’s hope that changes this year, as this was this was THE FIRST OF TWO YEARS I predicted they would be in the NCAA hunt.
ITA Grade/One Sentence Summary: B-. Strong results from the top/middle of the lineup, but Cards look far from NESCAC contenders.
BRANDEIS
The Good: Top singles. Granoff continued his solid singles play and held seed, making the quarterfinals. Along the way his best win was #9-16 Kyle Wolfe (Bowdoin #2-3) whom he beat in straight sets. Granoff fell in the quarters to Chen (Wesleyan #2), but after a successful Middlebury tournament I feel like I can say that Granoff is back. He had an excellent first year, and a somewhat disappointing second year, but the Judges need him in full force if they hope to pull off a UAA upset this year. Bunis’ win against Roddy (Bowdoin #4-5) was also very solid, but more on him in just a minute.
The Not So Good: Doubles/depth. Granoff and Cherkin were solidly beaten in the first round of the doubles, continuing the Judges’ spell of doubles trouble(s). The pair was beaten easily by Raventos/Schidlovsky (Williams #1) 8-2. Arguello’s return should have an impact at more than just his spot in the lineup, especially considering the recruiting class that Coach Lamanna brought in this year. Tyler Ng made his debut this weekend, and was cut down by Rosen (Bates #1-2) with little trouble. We didn’t get to see anything from Lubarsky (senior), or the two other 3-star freshmen (Cihlar or Kogan), but I’m sure we will shortly.
ITA Grade/One Sentence Summary: C+. After a nice tournament for Granoff but precious little else, Brandeis-nation needs Arguello to come back at full force.
MIT
The Good: Alex Cauneac, and making D3AS and D3Central eat their words. Obviously D3AS would never admit fault, and its WAYYYYY too early to pass judgment, but it was hilarious watching him be so high and mighty with MIT and then see Cauneac take out De Quant (Midd #4), Scott (Bates #2-3), and Gupte (Tufts #2) en route to the final four. Apparently the semifinal between Cauneac and Tercek was much closer than the score, and hopefully we will continue to see good things from the MIT freshman for years to come.
The Not So Good: The other highly touted recruits. MIT only got one doubles team into the draw, and Barr/Cauneac lost in the 2nd round to De Quant/Jackson (Midd). #9-16 seed and MIT’s most highly regarded recruit Sean Ko didn’t impress in the singles draw either. Ko, one of only two five stars to go DIII this year, fell in the first round to fellow freshman Joachim Samson (Wesleyan). Barr also lost in the first round of singles, losing in straight sets to Glickman (Trinity Ct).
ITA Grade/One Sentence Summary: B-. Low expectations result in MIT’s decent grade, but the expectations will now be higher come springtime.
COLBY (BONUS!)
The Good: SHAW SPEER’S TWITTER GAME! I don’t care if he and Hiller had won the whole damn tournament, nothing would have surpassed this kid’s updates. Shaw and Cam actually did very well in the doubles draw, making the quarterfinals before losing to Jiang and Wolfe (Bowdoin). They may have lucked out by getting Chen instead of Liu in the dubs, but a win is a win, especially at a tournament like ITAs.
The Not So Good: Carl Reid. Excuse me, the No. 2 seed Carl Reid. With Murad abroad, Carl wasn’t playing doubles so he had a nice weekend of singles to look forward to. Unfortunately, after winning the first set (comfortably I might add), De Quant (Midd) came back and won the 2nd and 3rd sets 6-2. De Quant is a good player, and the sophomore is certainly improving, but that was a major upset! Colby plays in the toughest conference in the country (yeah, I said it, wanna fight about it?) and its best shot at glory this year is either a Reid or Reid/Murad run at NCAAs. Not the way Waterville wanted to start. Feed off of it!
ITA Grade/One Sentence Summary: C. Nice dubs, but the early Reid loss killed any hope of top marks. Keep up the tweets!
Chris Ellis is in Spain this semester. Learning Spanish? No. Sight seeing? No. Chasing after the Latina? No. He is playing dirtball with Spain’s top juniors getting bigger stronger faster and just plain better. Stay tune NESCAC!
Hey whens northeast ita wrap up (Skidmore, nyu, RPI etc) happening?
Should be coming out this week. I believe D3Regional will have it for you by the end of the work week
Absolutely right. Ko to Grodecki and Samson beat Trinka. Good catch
Ko lost to grodecki not samson