State of the Region: The Atlantic South

This Blog was built on the grind of the Guru and the extreme snark of CHB. It now continues to be built on the Blog team’s sheer willingness to put out articles, my ever-interesting Blog ideas (some of them fail miserably), and NE’s organizational skills. With that, I will start another of my original article ideas – The State of the Region article. I remember coming up with this name on one of those State of the Union addresses, I believe in the Obama era. *quickly diverts away from mentioning anything politics.* So how about MLB season starting, right?

Anyways, it’s basically halfway through the year and that means it’s time for some State of the Region articles. I think I’ll be the first of the non-regional bloggers to get one of these guys out, and that’s mostly because I only have 4 teams in my blogger region and that makes me happy. Let’s dish out some grades and other thoughts for my dudes from the ASouth.

Emory Eagles

Emory has had a pretty run of the mill year so far this year, which for them means they’ve won every DIII match they’ve played. They navigated through an extremely rough Indoors field with 5-4 wins over Gustavus, Chicago, and CMS, all who rank within the top 7 teams in the country right now. They did this on the strength of their bottom of the lineup, winning 3 matches at the bottom against GAC and CMS, while also taking 2 of the 3 against Chicago. Emory has not been known as a doubles powerhouse, but they took two of 3 from both GAC and Chicago as well. At the end of the day, this is a very well-rounded team. However, they have shown that there may be some potential weaknesses as they’ve gone on this season. The trio of Jemison/Cassone/Josepher at the top of the lineup will be challenged every time out there. Jemison hasn’t had his best year to date, Cassone is an up and coming freshman, and Josepher has not necessarily seen success at his previous #2 singles spot. Emory can beat anyone at the bottom with Bouchet/Harrington/Rubinstein, and they can ride this to the title. But, they are not nearly as invincible as last year and I will be very interested in their performance against Amherst and Middlebury in a few weeks.

Grade: B+

Key Player to Watch: Alec Josepher

Carnegie Mellon Tartans

To say this team came in as a question mark this year is an understatement. And to say that this team hasn’t answered those questions to date would be lying. With the loss of 4 key players from last year’s team, and a 5-4 win over CNU in the fall, the Tartans were looking more like a top 20 team than a top 10. Coach Belmonte and the boys have changed that notion in a hurry. Despite getting walloped by GAC at Indoors and only picking up a win against Trinity TX, CMU went into Spring Break and took out both Wash U and Wesleyan, entrenching themselves in the #5 Pool C spot. CMU does things way differently than Emory – their top 3 basically get them through matches and a doubles lead is necessary.In their three ranked wins this year (TU, WashU, Wesleyan), they are 8-1 at the top of the lineup. In those same matches, they are 2-5 at the bottom. CMU is going to have a very nerve-wracking season as they have little margin for error to have a bad day. With tough matches against Kenyon, UMW, and Denison still to come, CMU has to navigate playing against teams hungry to take out a top 10 team this year. So far, the CMU season has been a success, but there’s still a long season ahead of us.

Grade: A-

Key Player to Watch: Chaz Downing

Mary Washington Eagles

The Eagles were the talk of the town early in the year, as they took down Kenyon, Sewanee, Coe, Stevens, and Kalamazoo in succession. They have since taken out Bates and totally wrecked Christopher Newport, and the Eagles are looking like locks for the postseason at this rate. Of course, I’m going to be the guy that mentions their two losses to Redlands and Pomona, but in this case, I’ll let it slide because those two teams were probably their best chances to win out West. Mary Washington has surprised this year by consistently pulling out close wins, something that has eluded them in recent years. Kudos to the team for what seems to be improved team chemistry, which is far from what we’ve seen recently (re: Brandon Griffin, Stratton Gilmore). It’s crazy what a tight-knit team can do with their talent and the Eagles are certainly showing that this year. They’ve ranked as high as #14 in our Power Rankings and deservedly so. They still have several key matches on the schedule – Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins, and Swarthmore, all ASouth duels. If UMW can win two of the three matches in that trio, we’re talking one of the best Eagle seasons in recent history. Gotta love it.

Grade: A

Key Player to Watch: Matt Miles

Johns Hopkins Blue Jays

Is there really anything to say about the Hopkins Blue Jays at this point in the season? No, not really. Hopkins has literally played 2 ranked matches, beating Bates 5-4 and W&L 5-4 as well. I guess NYU counts too, who they beat 9-0. Hopkins seems to be properly ranked in the 20s range, but I think we all have learned that Hopkins regular seasons are very strange. You really never know what you’re going to get. Remaining matches on their schedule are fairly important – a match versus Emory where we learn nothing, but then matches against CNU, Swarthmore, and Mary Washington that will really tell us where the Jays stand. I wouldn’t be surprised if they beat Swat and UMW easy, or if they lost to both in head-scratching losses. This is how Hopkins does it. I will say that it doesn’t seem like Hop really has any true strengths in their lineup, which worries me a lot. They’ll need someone to come out of nowhere (Cartledge maybe?) to become a rock, otherwise Swarthmore is coming.

Grade: C

Key Player to Watch: Austin Gu

Other ASouth Thoughts

A lot of the other writers give their individual predictions here, but we don’t have enough data yet to give predictions on who’s going to make it. I will give some of my thoughts, however, in very quick bulletized fashion.

• The following players are locks to make nationals, whether it be on team reputation or just general performance. Jonathan Jemison, Daniel Levine, & Hayden Cassone. The reason I say this is because I’ve seen Emory get two players in for like the past 10 years, and Daniel Levine is well, Daniel Levine.
• Jack Gray of Sewanee is as close to a lock as someone could possibly get, as he’s beaten both Matt Miles of UMW and Mark Fallati of Swarthmore so far this year. Kudos to you, Jack, even though for some reason you are a fan of the Cars movie series.

• Chaz Downing of CMU has what probably is a good shot of making it, being that he’s taken out some major national opponents at #2 singles. Wins over van der Sman, Bessette, Finkelman, and Tercek are good resume builders. He will have to keep notching wins against UMW and Kenyon/Denison, however, to build that resume even more.

• Swarthmore is hoping for Mark Fallati to make the tournament, despite losses to Gray, Boppanna (CMU), Shepard (W&L), Lipscomb (Redlands), and gettnig walloped by Fojtasek (Case). It hasn’t been a good year for Fallati and his saving grace might be beating Downing in the fall, but not sure if that’s going to even do anything. He absolutely needs to beat Joshi of Hopkins and Miles of UMW to give himself a case.
• Speaking of which, both Joshi (JHU) and Miles (UMW) have a long way to go to make nationals. Neither have had great seasons, whether it be because they haven’t played much (Joshi) or they haven’t won much (Miles), and the same rings true for them – they need to beat Fallati and each other to give themselves a fighting chance. One of these two is not going to make the tournament in my eyes.
• Some dark horses that will probably make it are Shepard of W&L and Sikh of NCW. Shepard has notched some impressive wins this year, and he’s enjoying the top spot for the Generals. Sikh has long been a factor in the individual tournament and he took out Reed of CNU to solidify his case. Shepard is more of a lock than Sikh, and both still have work to do.
• Dark Horses are Diego Marti-Vertiz (Millsaps) who took out Reed of CNU (who hasn’t) but lost to Josh Moskovitz (HAV), who happens to be a dark horse as well. Don’t think either of these guys make it, but the ASouth is so weak in individuals that they can get a big win and sneak into that 7th spot. I doubt it, but worth mentioning.

Hopkins/Emory Mini Preview

Okay, so Hopkins and Emory are squaring off this weekend and while the match probably doesn’t deserve the whole match by match treatment, it still deserves some type of mention. Hopkins is a heavy underdog here as they should be, and they really should be using this as a measuring stick match. Their team is young and will be a good experience for them to play the defending national champions. Emory has been rock solid at doubles all year and Hopkins will basically be hoping to get one match. Doubt it happens, especially if Emory is on target for the day.  In singles, it’s really hard to point out some interesting matches. Emory will dominate the bottom of the lineup, despite Hopkins having David Perez at #5 singles (I expected him at #3). Austin Gu has struggled at #4 singles and will be blown off the court by Bouchet if he plays there. What I am most interested in will be Cody Kim (reigning POTW) vs. Alec Josepher at #3. Somehow, Hopkins always seems to challenge Emory at random spots, and I remember what I believe was Nick Garcia beating Ian Wagner in like an 8-1 loss and Wagner smashing some stuff after. Sorry, Ian. Overall, expect a snoozer here with a couple matches coming in close because some guys didn’t come into this thing 100% focused.

Final Thoughts

Well, I churned this out in about an hour and a half or so and I am pretty damn proud of myself. I’m going to try and post some stream of consciousness type article in the next couple of days as well as some other thoughts on Pool C and Bracketology next week. It’s super exciting to be a part of DIII Tennis this time of year, so keep checking back! To all of you Atlantic South enthusiasts, I see you. For everyone else, ASouth, OUT.