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Coach: Michael Napoli, 3rd season
Location: Santa Cruz, CA
ITA Ranking: None
Blog Power Ranking: #37
Twitter: Nothing active
Team Hashtag: #SlugLife
Overview: I’m in Santa Cruz as I write this article. The monarchs are in town, the redwoods are majestic, and the banana slugs are plentiful. Unfortunately, all is not well for this once-great program in Northern California. Things are looking grim for the athletic department as a whole. Uncertainty about the future of the program and general difficulty with the UC system has locked up recruiting, and a coaching carousel has left the team without a definitive direction or hope for future development. Coach Napoli should really read Van Zee’s article on scheduling if he’s going to insist on continuing to coach a DIII tennis team, but with the money they’re paying him, I can hardly blame him for not putting in the effort of some of his colleagues. Negativity aside, the Slugs return enough solid players to make a decent team. Last year, they were much stronger than their lack of ranking would imply, but that’s what happens when you fail to schedule any team ranked between 15 and 40 all season. Again, they have the personnel to make a top 30 team (even after losing two of their top six), but their schedule will probably let them down.
Key Additions:
Gregory Alle (#672), Sarthak Saxena (#590), Ryan Gee (#633)
Key Departures:
Adrian Sirovica, Kyle Richter
Lineup Analysis:
Overall, it’s really difficult to tell which players will fall where in this lineup. The Slugs as a whole had a very good Fall tournament, with all but one player winning at least one match. Sirovica was a surprise #1 last year, and he was playing way above his pay grade. Now he’s gone, and the remaining players will have to pick up the slack. With all of these pieces, I’m convinced they can make a decent team.
#1 Singles: Chad LeDuff (So.) – UTR 11.57 – Playing mostly #3 singles, LeDuff was a bright spot for the Banana Slugs last year as a freshman. He won in all of their crucial matches (Whittier, Colby, George Fox), and even picked up a win over Tufts. He got off to a good start this year by beating both Marko Mandic from Pomona-Pitzer and CMS 4-star freshman Jake Berber in the backdraw of the ITA. Not bad for a sophomore.
#2 Singles: Chad Stone (Jr.) – UTR 11.07 – Stone has spent most of his time at #2 singles over the past two years with very limited success (one notable bright spot being a 6-1, 6-1 win over Jon Kim as a freshman). He entered the Fall tournament as the only seeded Slug, but he lost to CMS’ Max Macey in the second round. He’s a seasoned vet, who’s solid off both sides. He’s not a #2 player for a top 20 program, but if given the chance to play a Bates or a Stevens-type team, he could come up with the goods.
#3 Singles: AJ Flora (Jr.) – UTR 10.88 – This diminutive junior played #3 his freshman year before dealing with injuries that kept him at the bottom of the lineup last year. Still, with a tenacious ground game, he was the only Slug to make the Round of 16 this past fall, beating P-P senior Spencer Simonides and CMS 4-star freshman Jay Yeam along the way. This is potentially even more impressive than it sounds, since I’m told Yeam may be a 4-6 singles player for the Stags this year. If Flora can stay healthy, it will go a long way towards getting the Slugs back in the rankings.
#4 Singles: Ryan Dugan (So.) – UTR 10.95 – As a freshman last season, the lanky Ryan Dugan filled in at the middle of the lineup admirably. He beat the players he was supposed to beat, but he didn’t notch any big upsets. With a big serve, he’s a valuable asset on the doubles court. He started his fall season well with backdraw wins over Suchodolski from Redlands and Simental from CMS.
#5 Derek Levchenko (Sr.) – UTR 11.01 – Levchenko has been improving throughout his career for the Slugs, and he finally saw significant playing time last season. He’s had some of his best results in individual tournaments, however, a trend which didn’t change this past fall when he beat the highly-touted Caltech freshman Tine Valencic in the first round before falling to yet another CMS 4-star freshman (Daniel Park) in three sets in the second round. If he plays near the bottom of the lineup, he’ll be a sneaky-good five, but, given the schedule, he might not have a chance to show off his strengths.
#6 Sean Hollister (Sr.) – UTR 10.74 – Hollister feels like he’s been around forever, and yet he didn’t see much playing time last season. I can only assume he was dealing with injury, because he’s been solid for the Slugs when he’s been in the lineup. He didn’t have a great fall tournament, but the Slugs also seem to have a pretty steep drop off in terms of skill and playing experience after these top six. With a little more consistency, Hollister has the potential to be a dangerous #6 singles player for a #20-40 ranked team, but he absolutely has to stay on the court. If any one of these six players gets hurt, Cruz could have a really tough time winning at the bottom of the lineup.
Also In the Mix – Jason Vranek (UTR 9.63)
Doubles – Sirovica and Richter played big rolls in the Slug doubles lineup last season (seeing as how they were all-Americans and everything), so Santa Cruz might have a tougher time adjusting to their absence on the doubles court. Stone and Dugan had good success at #2 doubles last year, notably beating Pei and Leung from Chicago, but they got off to a rough start in the Fall tournament this year. At the ITA, Hollister and LeDuff won the first round consolation draw, while Flora and Levchenko lost in round 2. Again, the Slugs don’t seem to have doubles specialists to fall back on, so they’ll really be relying on these six players. By the looks of things, they have three pretty equal doubles teams right now.
Schedule Analysis:
Here’s yet another abysmal schedule
As you can see, the Slugs are playing 11 non-DIII teams. These matches are potentially useful for developing players, but not really all that useful when it comes to earning a ranking, making sure your team stays in Pool B, and helping individuals earn a shot at nationals. I’m sure they’ll give USC a good match. Their DIII schedule is the SCIAC minus Whittier. Basically, there are two ways they could finish this season with a ranking: they could get wins over Chapman, Caltech, and Cal Lu and hope one of those programs miraculously wins enough matches to lift the Slugs along with them into the ranking, or they could miraculously upset either Redlands or Pomona-Pitzer. Given recent history, neither of these scenarios looks particularly likely.
Conclusion:
If you look at the UTR rankings and the personnel this team has, it’s obvious that UC Santa Cruz is a top 40 team at the very least. Unfortunately, they have no teams ranked between 20-40 on their schedule, so they are likely to finish the season unranked yet again this season. If they lose a match against Chapman/Cal Lu/Caltech, they could find themselves, improbably, on the outside of a very small Pool B. This would have very interesting NCAA implications, but it’s definitely not good for the Slugs. Bottom line, I feel really bad for the players who went to a traditional powerhouse and found themselves in the midst of administrative upheaval. They’re a good team, and they deserve better than what they’re getting right now from an organizational standpoint. Bright side: they get to live in Santa Cruz and practice overlooking the Pacific Ocean every day.
UCSC is in a uniquely difficult position in terms of scheduling matches and it makes for a bizarre schedule as you pointed out. There are no D3 teams in Northern California and the ones in Southern California, which is a 6 hour van ride for the slugs, are either the powerhouses you mentioned, PP/CMS, or the one of the various unranked teams. As for scheduling other teams that are ranked between 20-40 that isn’t really in the cards for the slugs either. As you pointed out UCSC is looking at folding its athletics programs, which means there’s no money in the budget for trips to other parts of the country. Teams used to come to Santa Cruz just to play the slugs, but that was when UCSC was ranked in the top 5, something that hasn’t happened in a long time.
I would agree with you that the schedule is certainly unconventional and not ideal for the Slugs, but I don’t think your comment about Mike Napoli is founded at all. Having played for him as a head coach last year and an assistant the year before I can assure you that lack of effort is not an issue with Nap. I think this schedule is a result of a lot of unique difficulties that UCSC faces, because knowing Nap personally and having played for him I can guarantee you his commitment to his program and especially his players is not something he takes lightly.
I’ll agree that I shouldn’t have cast aspersions on anyone’s effort, but the schedule is really sub-par no matter how you slice it. The Slugs are making four trips to Southern California (if you count the Ojai). Coach Napoli could have (should have) picked up matches with the rest of the DIII teams making the yearly sojourn to Claremont (as they always used to). A more savvy coach would’ve been able to pick up matches with teams like Bates, Mary Washington, and Brandeis. As a first year head coach, last year’s schedule was understandable, but he should have been able to put something better together this year, though I’m sure he appreciates you coming to his defense.