Okay team, I admit it, I have been an absolutely horrible writer this season. Like, really really bad. Like, I’m the guy who is a solid middle of the lineup player, and then just doesn’t practice at all over the summer and then is horrible come the next season and is replaced by freshmen like the new D3West and D3Central. Anyway, that being said, one team that I have written absolutely nothing about this season is the Brandeis Judges. I didn’t even write a season preview for them because I’m a terrible person. However, they are having one heck of a season under Coach Lamanna, so this article will be dedicated to dissecting their season so far, and then talking about what is to come, which yes, is not much other than UAA’s because I’m just not a good person. Let’s get right into it.
The Judges lost their top 3 singles players to graduation last year, Ryan Bunis, Michael Arguello, and Brian Granoff, who all played between #1-3 for all four years, winning a ton of matches in both singles and doubles and essentially keeping the program in solid top 30 position. I for one expected them to take not a huge step backwards, but definitely fall more into the #35-40 range, similar to the Colby’s, Caltech’s, and Lewis & Clark’s of the world. The Judges, while losing three strong players, also brought in three promising freshmen in Rajan Vohra, Nikhil Das, and Anupreeth Coramutla. Coming into the season, the Judges were a young squad with a ton of question marks, at least from the outside looking in.
The Judges started the fall in strong fashion. At the famous Middlebury Invite, sophomore David Aizenberg and Coramutla made the finals of the A flight of doubles, taking out fine teams like Rohan Gupte / Zain Ali (Tufts) and JT Wynne / Steven Koulouris (Skid). One week later, at ITA’s, junior Jackson Kogan along with Coramutla reached the semis in doubles, taking out Steven Chen / Win Smith of Wesleyan and Nathan Kaplan / Sean Wei of Amherst among other teams. The Judges then continued their fine doubles play at the top at both the MIT Invite and then Wallach Invite at Bates, where Aizenberg and Coramutla teamed up again and won both titles! On the singles court, however, the Judges won scattered matches all fall, with Aizenberg even reaching the finals in the B singles flight at Bates, but I certainly wondered how their singles play would hold up in the spring.
We continue our season recap of the Brandeis Judges four months later in mid-February, with the Judges on their annual spring break trip to California. The Judges had four matches, and started off well, with easy wins over Point Loma, Cal Lutheran, and Occidental. The Judges went 8-1 in doubles in these matches, which was a huge positive in my mind. They then took on Pomona, who was ranked #12 at the time. The Judges came out of the gate super strong, taking all 3 doubles matches. However, Pomona stormed back in singles, taking 5 of the matches, including winning third sets at #1 and #3. This to me was a big turning point in the Judges season. Would the Judges use this as momentum, as they were a few games away from upsetting the #12 team in the country? Or would they see it as a missed opportunity, potentially leading to a lot of close losses the rest of the way? Only time would tell, but I for one was excited to find out.
The Judges returned to chilly Waltham and to a difficult northeast schedule. It started with a home match versus then #19 Bates, which is always a fiery matchup given it is where Coach Lamanna conveniently spent his college years. The Judges took 2 out of 3 doubles matches, and then rode their depth to 3 singles matches, getting wins at #4, #5, and #6 with freshmen Rajan Vohra and Nikhil Das, and sophomore Ben Wolfe. This was a huge moment for the Judges, and showed that they were mature and clutch enough to win the tightest of matches and compete with top 25 teams.
Now is the point in the recap where we fast-forward through a montage of sorts, with inspiring music playing in the background. The Judges won 7 out of their next 8 matches, taking out RPI, Trinity (CT), Babson, NYU, and Stevens, with the only hiccup being a 9-0 loss to Middlebury. Despite this loss, the Judges did get several solid wins during this stretch, giving outsiders the assurance that they were certainly a top 30 team, and likely even better than that.
The Judges then hosted #2 Bowdoin, and while they fell 6-3, they took 2 of the 3 doubles matches and competed well in singles. Just two days ago, the Judges hosted #25 MIT in a match that wasn’t super important from a UAA seeding standpoint (though potentially clinched the Judges the 5th seed over Case), but still a match that likely would have dropped Brandeis a few spots in the rankings if they lost. The Judges once again came out strong in doubles, taking 2 of 3 matches, including a 9-8 win at #1. The Judges then continued their strong play at the bottom of the singles lineup, winning at #4 (Nikhil Das over Sean Ko), #5 (Tyler Ng over Albert Go), and #6 (Zach Cihlar over Pablo Ampudia). This was a fantastic win for Deis and puts them in great position for the rest of their season.
Speaking of the rest of the season, the Judges have just 4 matches left. They will host Wheaton (MA) tomorrow and then have UAAs from Thursday – Saturday the following weekend. While I’m not going to write a full UAA preview now, the Judges are most likely going to be the 5 seed, marking the first time they’ve been higher than the 6 seed since the 2010-2011 season, when they were also the 5 seed, which is a nice achievement. The Judges will likely take on Wash U in what has the potential to be a really good match. The Judges will need to get off to a quick start in doubles, and if they can take 2 or 3 matches, I think things could get tight, especially at the bottom 3 spots in singles, where Deis has been playing very well. Wash U has had the better results this year and definitely comes in as the favorite, but anything can happen in that pesky Florida heat.
Coach Lamanna and Coach Kopelman deserve a ton of credit for the season Brandeis is having. They took a team that lost 3 top players and improved the team’s ranking and results, which is incredibly tough to do. Hats off to the Judges and good luck the rest of the way! To conclude, let’s look at a few MVPs of the Brandeis season thus far:
Top singles player – Nikhil Das
The freshman Das has played #4/5 all season and has had some great results, including wins over Vid Yadav (Bates), Jerry Jiang (Bowdoin), and Sean Ko (MIT). He has really come into his own over the course of the season and represents one of the strongest spots in the Judges singles lineup.
Top doubles team – David Aizenberg / Anupreeth Coramutla
Aizenberg and Coramutla have played together all season, and have been pretty fantastic. To go along with the MIT Invite and Wallach Invite titles I mentioned earlier, the duo has also had a great spring, getting wins against Pomona, RPI, Babson, NYU, Stevens, and MIT, with their only losses being to teams ranked above them in the NE, Bowdoin, Bates, and Midd. The duo is currently ranked #5 in the NE, so they might be slightly out of a nationals spot, though they do have a fall win over JT Wynne and Steven Koulouris, the Skid team currently ranked #2. Either way, this is a young team and one that should be a mainstay in the Judges lineup for the next couple of seasons.
Biggest strength – doubles
The Judges have played 15 matches this season. They have trailed after doubles in 1 of those 15 matches (Midd). Given how unpredictable doubles can be and how generally difficult of a schedule Brandeis plays, that’s pretty insane. If they can keep it rolling in Altamonte Springs, they can make some noise.
Quick hits:
To finish up, here are a few last observations on what’s been happening across New England and the West this season:
- Lewis & Clark has had a solid year, recently getting a 6-3 win over Pacific. They have the NWC tournament this weekend and have the best shot of taking out Whitman, though seniors Brenden and Gordon Barrows might have knocked themselves out of NCAA contention with their most recent loss to Pacific
- Colby has rebounded well this season after the loss of two important seniors in Vlad Murad and Carl Reid. Scott Altmeyer is starting to come into his own and is competing better and better with the top guys in the NE. The Mules will be losing a couple big contributors in Shaw Speer and Jeremy Mendoza but do look to be bringing in a solid recruit in 3-star Max Schuermann as Coach Cohen looks to keep pushing his program forward
- Caltech has really come into its own this season after a relatively slow start, most recently getting good SCIAC wins over Chapman, Whittier, Redlands, Occidental, and Cal Lu. They will likely be the 3 seed at SCIACs in a couple of weeks, and the potential is there for the Beavers to make some noise against Pomona, as they did take PP to 5-4 to open up the season.
- Southwestern (TX) had been struggling a bit this season with losses to Lewis & Clark, George Fox, Pacific (OR), and Kalmaazoo, but rebounded in a big way with a 5-4 win over Trinity (TX) last weekend. Alexis Dimanche got a huge 3-set win at #1 and this has to give Coach Porter much more confidence in his squad moving forward. Southwestern is the #1 seed in the SCAC tournament this weekend and you can find the bracket here. The championship match is tomorrow at 8:30 am.