A 2016 Phenomenon – Seniors Performance

@D3Northeast yeah, geez. A freshman just saved the match in a tiebreaker against a senior

— D3West (@d3_west) March 13, 2016

Seniors. Seniors have long been well-respected on the blog.  Some would even say they’ve been over-respected. But, they are respected for good reason. When I look for Championship teams, I look for teams with a large amount of senior leadership.  Reason being is that we expect seniors with experience to take really close matches as well as know how to take some younger players under their wing and teach them how to win under pressure. If you don’t believe me, I think my articles about past champions can give you a good idea of why seniors are so important, at least in DIII tennis.  Obviously, not that important in NCAA BB, where freshmen are running around going to the NBA.  If you don’t know why we love seniors so much, I’d suggest reading one of the best articles I’ve ever written below, about the journey of the 2012-2013 NCAA Champion Williams Ephs.

http://www.division3tennis.com/the-williams-journey/

There’s a little bit of self-promotion in this because I’m really proud of this article.  But, that doesn’t change the fact that seniors have a ton of experience.  They are the glues of teams.  Well, normally they are.  One thing that the bloggers have noticed this year is that it doesn’t seem like the seniors are performing as well as they are expected.  I have a few guys that come to top of mind, but I do want to do some research to see how the seniors are really doing.  I’m going to take you through the top 20 teams and see how their seniors are doing and whether or not this has a bearing on the team’s success (spoiler: it probably does).  Note: I will only be looking at seniors in the starting lineup.

Team by Team

Emory – Rafe Mosetick, #1 Singles, #2 Doubles

Not surprisingly, Rafe has had a stellar season so far.  He has one DIII loss against a streaking Sam Geier.  Other than that, he’s lost one set to Nick Chua and won that match in a match tiebreaker.  He’s also got one doubles loss all season to CMU, but wins every other time.  He’s almost an automatic 2 points.  Rafe has been a stellar senior on a team with a void in seniors.  Clearly, Emory is doing fine with their one senior captain.

Bowdoin – Luke Trinka (#2S, #1D), Chase Savage (#3D)

The #2 team in the nation has a big senior in Trinka, who has also been incredible this year.  He has one loss in singles and doubles, and the doubles match was against Chapman so it didn’t really matter.  Savage, who is a doubles specialist, only has 1 loss at #3 doubles.  Not surprising for a #2 team in the country though.

Middlebury – Ari Smolyar (#2S, #1D), Palmer Campbell (#3S, #2D)

Smolyar came into this year expecting to be one of, if not the best #2 in the nation.  After playing a really great #1 singles last year, Smolyar has come back to Earth this year.  Most disturbing is the fashion in which he lost to Glenn Hull of CMS, totally unraveling in the third set to clinch the match for the Stags.  Palmer Campbell also came into this year expecting to be one of the best #3s in the nation.  That has not come to pass.  He has losses in his last two matches to Pomona and CMS, however he does have a big win against Wesleyan in a 5-4 match.  Middlebury was a favorite for the championship this year, things have changed because they are not actually unbeatable with their seniors in the middle.

CMS – Skyler Butts (#1S, #1D), Lestter Yeh (#6S, #2D)

This has been an up and down year for Butts, who started fairly poorly in singles.  However, as the season has gone on, Butts has made his mark on the doubles court recently, becoming a great team with teammate Morkovine. However, in the CMS losses to Emory and Bowdoin, he was 0-2 in both.  Coincidence? I think not.  Yeh on the other hand has been a key component for the Stags at the bottom of the lineup.  With his move down the lineup, he has massive wins against Pomona and Middlebury.  Yeh is a slightly different type of senior because he has never played in the lineup, so it’s possible that it’s taken him some time to get acclimated to dual match play. Very interesting.

Chicago – None! No Seniors!

Case Western – CJ Krimbill (#1S, #1D), Louis Stuerke (#4S, #1D)

Case’s big wins have seen strength in seniors.  In their early season win over Wash U, both CJ and Louis won their doubles match, and CJ took it home with a singles win at #1 singles.  The big match, however, was the match against CMU at Indoors.  Again, CJ and Stuerke won their doubles match.  Stuerke took out freshman Arora in a straight setter while CJ took out senior Abhishek Alla in a straight setter, notching the team two quick wins.  Not surprisingly, in a later loss to Emory, the #1 team got knocked out as well as CJ.  When these two combine for at least 2 wins, Case is very hard to beat.

CMU – Abhishek Alla(#1S, #3D), Yuvraj Kumar (#3D)

These two CMU seniors pair up to be a strong #3 doubles team at the bottom of the lineup.  With wins against Pomona + Case at the beginning of the year they made a pretty big impact in the outcome of those matches.  Alla started slow in singles but he can hang his hat on the biggest win of the year for him this past weekend.  A 7-6 3^rd set breaker against Sam Geier to get the Tartans a 5-4 win.  Huge playing from the senior and he’s a big reason why they beat Kenyon.  However, his ridiculously bad showing at Indoors (including a 6-0, 6-0 loss to Yasgoor) make this seniors season an enigma.

Amherst – Michael Solimano (#2/3S, #1D), Andrew Yaraghi (#3S, #2D), Aaron Revzin (#4/5, #1D), Ben Fife (#6S, #3D)

Guess what? All you need to know about the Amherst seniors right now is that they were 0-3 in third sets and 0-4 in singles against Tufts.  These are some of the most talented guys in the nation.  None of them pulled out their third sets.  Against CMS, with seniors throughout the doubles lineup, they got swept.  They made a small comeback with three seniors getting wins in singles, but Andrew Yaraghi went down 6-1 6-1 to Glenn Hull to basically milk the Jeffs chances.  Amherst’s seniors have struggled in big matches this year and they need to turn it around to make the tournament.

Williams – Jose Raventos (#1S, #2D), Alex Schlidovsky (#4S, #1D), Brian Astrachan (#3D)

Williams doesn’t have that many results this year, but one that stands out to me is their 5-4 win against Pomona Pitzer.  Despite Raventos and Schlidovsky losing in singles, the Ephs were able to overcome their seniors losing and take out the Sagehens.  In their loss to CMS, the seniors went 1-4 in their overall matches.  Very interesting here as another team of seniors is struggling so far, as I mentioned as the main theme of this article.

Pomona Pitzer – Jonathan Kim (#3S, #2D)

Pomona’s lone senior has had the toughest season of any senior to date and I am worried about his confidence moving forward.  One year after Pomona made it a thing to win 5-4 matches, they have done the exact opposite this year.  JK has lost the clinching match in 3 sets to the following teams: Trinity TX, CMU, Emory, and Williams.  All have been in three sets, like I mentioned.  JK has been an epitome of how the PP season has went, which is not surprising.

Wesleyan – Zachary Brint (#1D), Sam Rudovsky (#3D)

Wesleyan doesn’t really have many seniors to note and they both play doubles, which is a two man game.  That’s what you come to the blog for – analysis like that.

Trinity TX – Paxton Deuel (#1S, #2D), Adam Krull (#2S, #1D), Eliot Guin (#6S, #3D)

Don’t be surprised.  When Paxton Deuel has performed, Trinity has eeked out matches. Rewind to Indoors, where he went 3-0 against Chua, Bush, and Yasgoor.  They won two out of 3 of those matches. Now fast forward to present day, where losses to Butts and Maassen of CMS and Pomona led to losses against those two teams.  Krull is a beast at #2 singles and has held up the Trinity lineup.  His injury this past tournament, however, cripples the team in a big way.  It’s really clear to see how important the seniors are to this year’s Trinity TX lineup.

Wash U – Tyler Kratky (#3S, #3D)

Kratky’s performance this season has been defined by a couple of matches.  His performance against Case (losses at #1D and #3S) really put the dagger in the Bears during that match.  However, the rest of the way Kratky has been solid, winning most of his #3 singles matches, albeit against slightly lesser opponents in Trinity TX, Kenyon, GAC, and UTT.  I’m looking forward to the rematch vs. Case and Chicago this weekend.  If the Bears are to pull some upsets, Kratky needs to be notching wins with his experience.

Whitman – Philip Locklear (#2S, #1D)

Another example of a senior that is struggling a bit in his final year.  The former Earlham transfer has gotten his taste of great tennis at Whitman.  It seems to be a bit of a sour taste this year as Phil has struggled at #2 singles.  While he’s been rock solid at #1 singles, he has multiple losses to Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Tufts, CMS, Redlands, and Pacific amongst others.  Could this be part of the reason for Whitman’s relative struggles this year?

Redlands – Taylor Hunt (#6S)

Hunt is actually a graduate student and he’s had a real tough year.  He is 3-6 in ranked matches, with those 3 wins coming against Bates, UMW, and CNU.  Every time Redlands has played against a top ranked team, he’s faltered.  The young Dawgs team needs just a little bit more from this experienced “senior.”

UW-Whitewater – Jake Humphreys (#1S, #1D), Michael Treis (#S, #1D), Matt Bisbee (#3-6 singles)

My gosh. I came in here expected Humphreys to have had a stellar year and that is far from the case.  He’s 0-4 in ranked singles matches after a stellar year last year.  That is really surprising to me.  Treis also has had a fairly tough year at #2 singles, but he does have one win that means the most.  A three-setter over Michael Liu of Kenyon that won them the match 5-3.  This win jolted them into the top 20 and they are still there sitting pretty.  Bisbee has had a pretty good year, highlighted by his win over Tristan Kaye at #6 singles against Kenyon.  He’s been shuttled around the lineup but has won consistently all year.  Interesting story coming from UWW as it looks like their other players are holding the team up.

Kenyon – Sam Geier (#1S, #1D), Robert Turlington (#3S, #3D)

FINALLY! A senior that has gone to the next level in his senior season.  Sam Geier is potentially the best if not the second best player in the country, second to either Noah Farrell or Rafe Mosetick.  Geier has went Super Saiyan Senior and that’s the kind of stuff that makes me happy.  The other Kenyon seniors, however, have been less than stellar.  Very less than stellar.  They’ve lost 5-4 against CMU, Wash U, and Pomona.  Rob Turlington has lost his singles matches in those.  Note that he lost to Kim of Pomona, who was mentioned earlier this article.

My Thoughts

I mean, you already got most of my thoughts in the little blurbs above, but this year has been so strange.  I think its part of the reason why there have been so many upsets and random results happening.  Seniors simply haven’t upped their games like we have seen in past seasons.  Remember Conor Hudson of Pomona last year? How about that whole Williams team? Or maybe Warren Wood, Nik Marino, and Joe Dorn last year?  Seniors oftentimes will determine the big matches.  This year has been a down year for them. One has to wonder whether this strange phenomenon will continue as we reach the more pressure packed time of the year.  Will the seniors lose confidence after their less than stellar years?  Or will they rise to the occasion as they begin to realize these are the last matches they’ll ever play? I would love to hear your thoughts on this.  Also, I realize I didn’t get to all the top 20 teams.  I’ll make sure I get to a senior shout-out later on this season.  I have other articles to write.  ASouth, OUT.