2016 Women’s Season Preview: #30 Trinity Bantams

Location: Hartford, CT

Head Coach: Lori Shulman, 1st year

Twitter Handle: @LadyBantTennis

2013 National Ranking: #18
2014 National Ranking: #17
2015 National Ranking: #30
2016 Pre-Season National Ranking: #30

Intro:
The Bantam’s motto this year needs to be ‘Fresh Start.’ They are a storied team that has been in a steady decline these past couple of years, and this year, they just don’t have the personnel to do any damage and climb the rankings. What they CAN do is start winning again. Doesn’t matter against who, they just need to remember that feeling of winning, which is incredibly hard to do when you’re part of the NESCAC and are having a down year. That’s why I really like the schedule that Coach Shulman has put together this year – she fulfills her duties of playing her NESCAC foes, but also puts in a lot of winnable matches in there to keep her team motivated. She ends it with a great home match in Skidmore – a much deeper team but certainly a team within reach if Trinity has a great day.
Trinity also has a great senior captain #1 player in Melita Ferjanic. Only one other team that I have previewed this year has a #1 senior captain that has played her entire college career in that position, and that is the Middlebury Panthers with Ria Gerger. Melita should be admired for sticking with her team through all the ups and downs, the coaching change, and her teammates coming and going.  Her teammates and coaches should be highly motivated to give her a final season that she won’t forget.

Lineup Analysis:

Let’s take a look at my projected lineups for Coach Shulman’s Bantams

UTR Power6 Rating (the sum of the supposed top 6 players on a team): ~38

#1 Singles: Melita Ferjanic, senior, 8.60
Melita is the obvious #1 for this team. Let’s not forget that she qualified for the NCAA singles tournament her freshman year. Who knows, with another sensational year, maybe she can do it again?
This fall in the ITAs she had a relatively routine win against an Amherst freshman, and then ran into Eudice in the second round.

#2 Singles: Vanja Babunski, sophomore, 8.01
Babunski had a massive 1st round upset of Amherst #1 Sue Ghosh at the ITA regionals this year. Other than that, I’m not sure what she’s done but that should give her the confidence that she can indeed compete with the best. She doesn’t have a big game but she does hang in there and sometimes that is what it takes to win the match.
Looking at her spring record from last year, she went 11-3 against some pretty good competition, so she is definitely a tough out at #2.

#3 Singles: Zoe Lindbloom, freshman, 7.99
Freshman Lindbloom is an unknown factor for the Bantams, but looking at her UTR, she would be the next logical player to go in the lineup.

#4 Singles: Ania Aliev, sophomore, 4.89
This is where things will start to get tough for the Bantams. Looking at Aliev’s results last year, she was 1-15 in the spring!

#5 & #6 Singles: Not really sure who will be playing at these positions but the rest of the players have about a UTR of 4 or below
These two spots, as well as #4, will be a great big struggle/challenge for the Bantams. Looking at the top three of the lineup, it looks like a team that could potentially compete with almost any team in the country. Unfortunately, you need more than 3 points to win a tennis match, and this is where the Bantams will run into trouble winning matches. BUT, this is where heroes emerge, and if a match ever goes the distance and one of these players have to come through and she does, she and her teammates will remember this for the rest of her life.
This actually happened in the match against Tufts last year that helped Trinity get the final spot in the NESCAC Championships. Trinity won at the top 3 singles positions and the top doubles position. Tufts won at #4 and #5 singles and the bottom 2 doubles spots. All the doubles scores were 8-1 and none of the singles matches went 3 sets, except for 6th singles. 6th singles pitted Bantam Emily Curtis with a 4.00 UTR against Jumbo Hannah Conroy with 5.48 UTR. With the match on the line, Curtis came through in 3 sets to take the match!

Doubles:

Schedule Analysis:

Here’s Trinity’s schedule: http://athletics.trincoll.edu/sports/wten/2015-16/schedule

3/14 v Kenyon
3/15 v #12 Sewanee
3/16 at Whittier
3/17 v #8 Bowdoin
3/26 at Mount Holyoke
4/2 Colby
4/5 at Conn
4/9 at #24 Tufts
4/12 #3 Amherst
4/17 at #28 Brandeis
4/24 at Hamilton
4/27 #17 Wesleyan
4/30 #16 Skidmore

As I said, I love this schedule. The Bantams need to learn how to win again. Their spring break takes place in Southern California and Kenyon is a great team to start off with. As will be the pattern in many of these types of matches, Trinity will have the advantage at the top 3 singles positions and the top doubles spot, while the rest of the lineup has to find 1 point to win the match. Sewanee and Bowdoin will be a reach (good for their top players though) but their match at Whittier should follow the same formula as Kenyon.
Then they are back in New England and they start off with matches against Mount Holyoke, Colby, and Conn, where they will rely on points at the top of the lineup and then fight for whatever they can at the lower positions. I like Trinity’s chances in all three matches. Then they play two more NESCAC opponents in Tufts and Amherst, which, again, are teams that are going to be too deep Trinity. The Brandeis match will actually be a close one. The Bantams are stronger at the top, and the Judges are a touch deeper but not by much. Should be a very good matchup. Same goes for the Hamilton match. Wesleyan will be too strong for Trinity but I’m not counting Trinity out against Skidmore. Skidmore is clearly the much deeper team but it will be Melita’s last team match (and probably senior day at Trinity), etc, etc, so you never know.
By the end of the season, Trinity will have a possibility of being an 8-5 team, which I would say would be a very successful season for this team. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Coach Shulman adds a couple of more winnable matches to this schedule, as it seems a bit incomplete.

D3NEW’s 3 Keys to Trinity’s Season:

#1. Follow Melita’s lead and give her a senior season she won’t forget. She is the most senior person on the team, including the coaches.
#2. Don’t get discouraged. Get excited about this schedule (I am!) Get excited about winning matches.
#3. Recruit, recruit, recruit!

Over and out,

NEW