Hello there, D3RegionalNEC here to bring you a Recap of this past weekend’s quad in Fredricksburg, where Mary Washington hosted Coe, Sewanee, and Stevens. D3RegaionalASouth joined me to discuss what happens and what it means moving forward, so please enjoy his words on UMW and Sewanee in addition to my thoughts on Coe and Stevens!
RESULTS:
Mary Washington def Sewanee 5-4
Mary Washington def Stevens 7-2
Mary Washington
Grade: A
Recap: Mary Washington held serve against three solid teams this weekend. I was interested to see how the Eagles would follow up their win over Kenyon last weekend against another top 25 team in Sewanee, and they did not disappoint. A 5-4 win over a hungry Tigers squad shows me that this Mary Washington team came to play this season. The Eagles fell behind early going down 1-2 after doubles, and I thought for sure Sewanee was going to take the match, but the grit of the Eagles and the Cole Tecce’s second clinching win in a 5-4 match led them to the victory. While Coe and Stevens aren’t really considered powerhouses, they are both teams that could be dangerous if UMW took the foot off the gas after a good start to the season, but the Eagles stood strong and took down both with relative ease winning 6-3 and 7-2 respectively. I was most impressed with the depth of the Eagles going 8-1 at 4-6 singles this weekend. I was slightly disappointed in the doubles play, falling behind 1-2 to both Sewanee and Coe. If Mary Washington wants to continue to find success this season against teams ranked higher than them, they will need to clean this up.
What this means moving forward: Mary Wash has put themselves in a very good position moving forward with an unblemished 5-0 record against 5 teams ranked in the top 40. Not a bad start to the season. They have re established themselves in the top 25 in the country and will jump to number 4, ahead of Sewanee, in the regional rankings. The fun has only just begun for the Eagles though. Over Spring Break they will take on Cal Tech, Whitter, Pomona Pitzer and Redlands. My match to circle is the one against PP. The Hens are slightly down this season and I will be curious to see if the Eagles will be able to take down an established top 15 team.
Sewanee
Grade: B
Recap: The Tigers had themselves a decent week, but couldn’t seal the deal against Mary Washington to finish up a perfect weekend. I was very surprised to see Sewanee lose after taking the 2-1 lead going into singles. The Tigers might not be as deep as I originally thought in my season preview and this has been exposed against the two best teams they have played this season, Mary Washington and Kenyon. The good news for the Sewanee is that they haven’t taken too big of a step back after losing Schober because they still picked up pretty easy 7-2 wins over Coe and Stevens. The Tigers fell behind 1-2 to Coe after doubles, but rebounded in singles, winning all 6 matches. Maybe the doubles deficit was the result of the late night loss and early morning match the next day, but regardless the Tigers were resilient and found a way to hold strong. The Stevens match was fairly straightforward, winning 2 out of 3 doubles and pretty much rolling through singles. I am not too concerned with Olps’ #2 singles loss to Stevens’ hot shot freshman Keegan Morris because he might be the best player on that Ducks team.
What this means moving forward: It means that Sewanee is a good team, but might not be ready to become a great team just yet, based on their close losses to Kenyon and now Mary Washington. The Tigers are very young with a lot of room to grow, so I am still optimistic about them moving forward if they use these losses as motivation to work harder and press onward. Up next for Sewanee is a Spring Break trip where they will take on Swarthmore, Whitman and Tufts, oh my. The match against a strong, senior laden Swarthmore team is going to be a telling sign for the Tigers. If they can come out of top of that one, I think the rest of the season will be pretty bright for this team.
Coe
Grade: B+
Recap: Even though I had said before the weekend that one win would just be “okay,” I think Coe finishes the weekend looking a bit better than I expected and should feel pretty good. The loss to Sewanee was quite close and easily could’ve been 5-4 instead of 7-2, and they also gave a resurgent Mary Washington team a very good battle. Josh Pudlo and Luke Ford went 3-0 at #2 doubles and it’s good to see Brady Anderson getting a couple good wins under his belt after a tough start to the year, as he beat Danny Polk and Matt Miles. I’m sure he would’ve loved to have gone 3-0, but his only singles loss was 7-5 in the third to a very solid Jack Gray from Sewanee, so overall I think this should give the senior some momentum moving into Spring Break.
The 7-2 win over Stevens was also relatively tight, but a win is a win, and according to the ITA it’s actually an upset as Coe is #39 and Stevens #37. Good to see Coe winning all the lower lineup spots, as they’ve traditionally been weaker down in the depths of the lineup, but this year’s team appears to be pretty well balanced and has a number of guys who can come through on any given day. Pudlo/Ford were really the only two that had a perfect weekend, but there were a number of impressive individual matches.
What this means moving forward: Well, in the past I feel like Coe has been ranked because they have a high win total despite not having any “good” wins, but the victory over Stevens really reaffirms that their spot in the top 40 is well deserved. Additionally, the closeness of the other two matches is also a good signal to me that the Kohawks are probably somewhere in the 30-35 range. Beyond the results and rankings though, I would imagine this was a very productive trip in terms of team bonding, playing tough matches, and getting to face some different teams. All of this matters, both in terms of making a team tougher but also as far as just the overall experience of being on the team goes. I know some of my best memories are from road trips to random places. (By the way—did Coe fly or drive to Virginia? Either way, quite a lot of travel for a weekend, especially with a Spring Break trip to Florida coming up).
What else this means—Coe has the potential to not lose another D3 match for the entire season until NCAAs. It’s good that they got these matches against higher ranked teams in now, because for the rest of the way Coe is favorited. The matches that I could see them possibly losing are Rhodes, Wabash, and UW-Whitewater, but if they perform at the same level as this weekend, the Kohawks should win all three of those. To sum it all up, my takeaway is quite positive after this weekend for the mythical birds of prey from Cedar Rapids.
Stevens
Grade: B-
Recap: Stevens lost all three matches 7-2, showing they are clearly the weakest of the four teams this weekend. There were very few individual matches that were complete blowouts, but you don’t just lose a ton of relatively close matches by accident. I think the Ducks had the least D3 matches under their belts so far this season coming into the weekend which probably hurt them in terms of match toughness, but at the end of the day they results speak of themselves—Stevens is simply not as good as UMW, Sewanee, or Coe. Freshman Keegan Morris had a very nice weekend, though, which Coach Gachko must be pleased with. Morris beat Ryan Olps (Sewanee) and Josh Pudlo (Coe) at #2 before switching with Danny Polk and playing #1 against Mary Washington, where he was outgunned by Matt Miles. Shows the faith the Ducks have in him already by putting him at the top spot this early in the year. Danny Polk and Will Persson also had a solid 2-1 weekend at #1 doubles with wins over Coe and Sewanee which is obviously nice to see, but unfortunately those were the only two doubles matches Stevens would win all weekend, which is certainly a cause for concern.
What this means moving forward: Not a whole lot! Stevens will probably hover around 40 in the ITA rankings (even though I have them unranked in power rankings), but all of these matches are really just a good chance to get some competition in. None of the teams they faced are regional opponents so the 0-3 weekend shouldn’t have too much impact on their Northeast ranking, and Stevens might have the easiest conference tournament in the country, meaning they have nothing to worry about as far as making NCAAs goes. The Ducks will likely need to go back to the drawing board with some of their doubles pairings, but for singles they pretty much are who they are. Danny Polk and Keegan Morris would be a great 3 and 4, but at 1 and 2 they’ll probably be no better than .500. Same goes for Will Persson at #3, and beyond that I think there’s still a number of guys who could see some playing time. I don’t have any huge takeaways from this weekend for Stevens—they appear to be about the team we expected them to be. A win this weekend would’ve been very nice, but the 0-3 finish isn’t the end of the world or a big shock.
Happy hump day everybody! Thanks as always for reading. I’ll be back later this week for another edition of What’s Happening in your NEC(k) of the Woods. Until then, have a good one!