Blog fam! As the summer winds down, I start to question what I’m doing with my life when I get home from work and don’t need to think about writing an article. Then, as teams start to have their first practices and I see Brad Gilbert tweeting pictures with Connecticut College during the US Open, I begin to get excited. It’s the beginning of D3 tennis season, and nobody is more excited than the blog. We have a couple new writers on the men’s side along with a few on the women’s, and I know I for one will really struggle remembering to tag all of the men’s bloggers in every tweet where I announce a new article. Apologizes to any of the bloggers in advance.
Talking tennis with Connecticut college camels pic.twitter.com/T3QQjqcTe2
— Brad Gilbert (@bgtennisnation) September 3, 2017
This year, as I did last year, I will be covering the regional teams (though several of them are also nationally ranked) in both New England and the West. I will still go by the moniker of D3Regional, partly because I am the original D3Regional, and second of all because everybody calls me Regional in our blogger group text and I’ve gotten to the point where I really just think it is my real name at this point. In terms of the actual teams I will be covering, it does tend to depend on how teams are doing throughout the year. I had no idea that I would be covering Southwestern University at the beginning of last year, but they were awesome, and therefore, I started writing about them. The same goes for this year. Win and you are in (my articles)! I’ll definitely be covering teams like Colby, Brandeis, Babson, Lewis & Clark, Southwestern, Pacific, Cal Lu, and Whittier, really in no particular order, and not limited to just these teams.
Without further ado, I bring you a six-pack preview of questions for the New England and West regions. Three questions for each region, here we go.
- How will Brandeis and Colby rebound from their graduations?
#20 Brandeis lost their top 3 singles players to graduation in Ryan Bunis, Michael Arguello, and Brian Granoff, three guys who won a ton of matches for the Judges over their careers. #33 Colby lost their #1 in Carl Reid, their #2 in Vlad Murad, and their #5 in Cam Hillier. Both classes were incredibly impactful for both schools, and it’s always difficult for guys who were solid players lower down in the lineup to now have to step up and win at the higher spots. Both schools should have some new options, as Colby has five freshmen including a 3-star, and Brandeis has a 4-star, a 3-star, and 2-star coming in. Both schools play a solid fall schedule, with Brandeis playing the Midd Invite, ITA tournament, and the Wallach at Bates, and Colby playing the last two of those, so we should have plenty of opportunities to see the guys in action.
- Who else from New England will step up in the Northeast rankings?
In the northeast rankings, after #9 MIT, there are there are exactly two New England teams in the #10-20 spots of the Northeast rankings, Colby and Babo. Trinity does have a 3 star coming in but they also lost their #1 (Rutendo Matingo) and #3 (Will Boyd). I really have no idea what other team from New England could crack the northeast top 20. Give me some ideas in the comments!
- Can Babson take a step forward this season?
Babson lost exactly zero seniors this year, and with Brandeis’ and Colby’s losses, the Beavers look like a team who could be poised to take a big step forward this year. Babson has a solid recruiting class with two 3-stars and 2-star, who along with Alberto De Mendiola and Brandon Rosenbluth should make for a much deeper Babson lineup. Babson plays a solid schedule, with Vassar, Bates, Brandeis, and Colby all featured, so the Beavers should have plenty of chances to move up in the Northeast rankings, where they are currently #20.
- Will Southwestern continue their surge?
Southwestern University burst onto the scene last year and won the hearts of all bloggers
everywhere through both their fine play and their participation in blogger podcasts. They are losing their great #1 singles player, who really helped to turn around the Southwestern program, in Niko Snovely, but with last year’s experience, the Pirates should be in really good shape to continue their upward trend. Alexis Dimanche at #2 was one of my favorite players to follow last year, and the rest of their team should be even better after a year where they competed really well against schools inside the top 30.
- Who is going to finish 4th in the SCIAC?
The immediate answer that comes to mind has to be Caltech, as our new D3West blogger emphasized in his article the other day. They are bringing in two 4-stars and a 3-star, but they also need to replace the two Pathireddy brothers (including their #1 in Ruthwick Pathireddy). Caltech had what was honestly a pretty shocking regular season loss to Chapman last year after suffering a doubles sweep, but the Panthers are also losing their #1 and #2 in Charlie Werman and Josh Sarsfield. Cal Lu always battles and it doesn’t look like they have lost anybody this season, but it doesn’t look like they’ve added anybody either. Whittier has lost Andrew You and #1 and a doubles guy in Troy Chavez. The #4 spot is Caltech’s to lose, and it will be interesting to see if they can do even better than that.
- To conclude, a question that I ask every year: Can anybody take down Whitman in the NWC?
Probably not. I was going to leave it at that but I’ll elaborate. Whitman only loses a couple of starters in Petar Jivkov (#2 singles/#2 doubles) and Jake Hoeger (#2 doubles) while they have like six solid recruits coming in. Lewis & Clark loses their #2 (Michael Brewer) and their #6 (Ben DeLuca) and Pacific (OR) loses their #4 (Josh Bernstein), #3 (Ruben Mulhern), and #1 (Clark Wininger) along with their head coach in Brian Jackson. George Fox doesn’t lose anybody but has a lot of ground to make up. Lewis & Clark shocked in the world when they took out Whitman in 2016, but Whitman dominated the conference last year, losing no more than 2 points in any conference match, and I don’t think that will change this year. Pacific and Lewis & Clark both do a terrific job at developing their guys into great players that always compete hard, but at a certain point, the gap is just too much.
Look out for kickoff articles from every writer over the course of the next couple of weeks! Lastly, I just wanted to give a sincere thank you to everybody who has donated so far to our site. Every donation we received has honestly warmed my heart, and it really does motivate us to write better articles more often. Well, in my case, I don’t know about better, but I can definitely write them more often. Anyway, to conclude my article here, big year for the blog, lots of uncertainty in New England and the West, and Caltech has great recruits coming in. Until next time!
Not that I mind or object – just curious why Colby would be covered by D3Regional in this article. Wouldn’t they normally be part of D3NE’s universe since they’re in the NESCAC (and therefore not a “regional” team)?
So I know I’m no D3Northeast…but the goal for all of us D3 writers is to have more or less the same amount of teams to cover. So D3NE will cover the Midd’s, Bowdoin’s, Wesleyan’s, Williams’, Amerherst’s and so on’s of the world, while I take the next tier, including Brandeis, Colby, Babson. D3NE usually would cover the top 8 or so NE teams, and the next 12 or so would be split between myself (New England) and D3NortheastCentral (Northeast). Colby is #12 in the NE, which puts them in regional writer territory right now, despite their power conference.