This Week In West: The SCIAC Tournament

The SCIAC tournament has always been one of the best conference tournaments in the country. At times, the conference has had three or four teams in the top ten (much like the current UAA), and there are usually some major post-season implications in the final weekend before NCAA selections. One thing the SCIAC tournament has lacked in recent decades is parity. In this year in which many teams loosened their grip on conference dominance (Whitman, Mary Washington, W&L, Johns Hopkins, Sewanee), now is as good a time as any to take a step back and marvel at CMS’ SCIAC dynasty.

CMS last lost a conference match in April of 2005. They lost three conference matches that year before launching on a string of major conference dominance that I’ve never heard of. Since that time, they weathered the Ballou-Giuffrida Cal Lu years, a whole bunch of top 10 Redlands teams, and even the 5-4 bonanza that was last year’s Pomona-Pitzer squad. It’s astounding that over a decade they never had an off day against such a smorgasbord of top 10 competition. Sure, there’s a small component of luck involved, (they did lose to Swarthmore, after all, and that loss easily could’ve come to a P-P or a Redlands) but the Stags have played with a consistency we haven’t seen in other top teams. This year, they’re looking to make their fourth consecutive NCAA final, which is something we haven’t seen since Williams from 2001-2004.

At times, I’ve hated CMS, mostly out of jealousy. I’ve hated them because they’re the Yankees of West coast tennis with their fancy courts and their fancy recruits and their fancy championships. I relished their loss to Swarthmore and the fact that, for a brief period of time, my team was ranked ahead of them (I’m sorry, I just can’t help myself). Nevertheless, I have always respected CMS. They’re fun to play against, often intense, rarely malicious. They’re always very accommodating to the teams they’re about to annihilate. They don’t tend to be condescending or arrogant about how much better they are like some other great teams. When they won the national championship on their third try last year, I was glad. This year’s team, however, is easily my favorite CMS men’s tennis team. They’re led by a 3-star who turned himself from the third best player in his recruiting class to one of the top 3 players in the nation followed by another guy who didn’t make a fuss about not starting after winning the Fall ITA last year. Mork has his endearing 3-set propensity, and Yeh has followed the Pereverzin stereotype of not really playing much singles for his first three years before emerging as a rock at the bottom of the lineup as a senior. There’s not a 5-star in the group, and a bunch of 2-stars (Vemuri, Mehall, Seifert) have made significant contributions. Many of these guys haven’t had much playing time prior to this year because of the Wood/Dorn/Marino era, and they’ve improved throughout the year.

Looking forward, I’m eager to see whether or not these guys will be able to beat one or two teams that absolutely crushed them in the regular season to win back-to-back titles, but that is not the purpose of this post. The purpose of this post is to talk about the SCIAC tournament.

Last Week In West

#10 Pomona-Pitzer def. #15 Redlands 6-3

This match featured lineups I never could’ve predicted, but it featured some great tennis throughout. With Dulle out of the lineup, Ly jumped all the way to the #2 position to challenge Yasgoor. Lipscomb and Maassen had a slugfest, and Joshua Kim came out of nowhere to start at #4 singles and beat Bryant Johnson in three sets. The common theme in those three matches is Pomona-Pitzer winning in three sets, which, obviously, was the difference in the match. Parker Wilson continued to play well and Taylor Hunt picked up another win for the Grad students out there, but in the end, Pomona-Pitzer got some of their close-match mojo back. As we saw last year when Redlands beat Pomona-Pitzer in the regular season before losing the SCIAC tournament, a lot can change in a week. More specifically, Dulle could come back for Redlands and bolster the Dawgs’ lineup, especially in doubles. It should be a great semifinal, even though it doesn’t really have post-season implications other than giving one team a chance to take their best shot at CMS’ streak.

This Week In West

Quarterfinals

I’m going by the seedings on the SCIAC tennis website, which don’t really make sense to me

#1 CMS vs. #8 Occidental – Oxy continues to be the program that should be good but isn’t. I forget if they play to completion or not. 9-0 CMS.

#2 Pomona-Pitzer vs. #7 Chapman – The story here will be Buford and Werman trying to play their way into the tournament with a win over Maassen-Simonides. After the P-P duo lost to Ly/Johnson this past weekend, I think they rebound to resolidify their post-season standing. 8-1 Pomona-Pitzer with a win at #4 singles for Chapman.

#3 Redlands vs. #6 Whittier – Whitter has rebounded nicely from a poor start to the season. That doesn’t mean they’re about to beat Redlands. 8-1 Redlands.

#4 Caltech vs. #5 Cal Lu – Cal Lu beat Whittier the first weekend of the season and then basically lost to everybody. I don’t know if Caltech has ever finished as the #4 seed in the SCIAC before, but I think they’ll take advantage of a favorable draw to move into the semifinals with a 5-4 win.

Semifinals

#1 CMS vs. #4 Caltech – Again, this match will not be close, but Caltech should be very proud of their season, and they have a lot to look forward to with a strong recruiting class coming in next year. 9-0 CMS

#2 Pomona-Pitzer vs. #3 Redlands – This should be the match of the tournament. If my post last week taught me anything, it’s that prognostications are pointless. I’m not sure about Dulle’s status, but he could really give the Bulldogs a boost heading into this match. I don’t think Redlands wins without taking at least two doubles matches. It’s certainly possible, but Pomona-Pitzer just has a little bit of an advantage at most positions. If Redlands can win #2 and #3 doubles and get a W from little Lipscomb, they can win this match, but I’ll take Pomona-Pitzer 5-4 again.

Finals

#1 CMS vs. #2 Pomona-Pitzer – Here we are again. Pomona-Pitzer has always brought their A-game against their cross-street rivals, and I don’t think this match will be any different. Unfortunately for them, CMS is playing like a runaway freight train. If the Hens want to have any chance, they’ll have to take a lead in doubles again. Even if they manage that, CMS’ singles lineup is really rounding into form, as evidenced by the fact that a guy that may or may not play #6 singles beat Yasgoor at the Ojai. I think CMS wins 7-2 with wins at 1 and 3 doubles, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 singles.

There are back-draw matches in the SCIAC tournament. I’ll leave it to D3Regional to cover these if he can find the time, as he knows the teams better than I do. If I had to guess, I would take Whittier to finish 5th, as they seem to be riding a bit of a hot streak.