If you have not seen Avengers Infinity War yet, I highly recommend you stop reading this article to go do so because there are spoilers ahead… Just kidding! But seriously, go see it. It’s dope. Anyways, as the regular season begins to wind down and conference tournaments begin, the blog is hard at work prepping for the post season. The regular season is normally an indication of what we should expect going into the big dance so I decided to grade each team based on their regular season performance and hand out a regular season MVP award and a player to watch moving forward as we get into conference and NCAA play. Snape kills Dumbledore. Oh wait, wrong movie spoiler. Let’s get to it!
Swarthmore
National Ranking: 16
Blog Power Ranking: 19
Regional Ranking: 3
End of regular season grade: B
Regular season MVP: Jiung Jung
Swarthmore picked up a couple of very good wins this season over Whitman, Sewanee and Mary Washington, but failed to capture the regular season Centennial Conference title after losing 5-3 to Hopkins this past weekend. Here’s the good news for you Garnet fans, this team is battle tested after playing 12 nationally ranked teams (mostly inside the top 25) and knows how to compete against very good teams. The bad news is that the tanking Hopkins has now shifted to the treeing Hopkins at the right time and it looks like the Jays aren’t going to go down easily, especially in big match situations. However, I am going to stick to my gut reaction in the first Bloggers Hot Takes article and say that, “Swarthmore will win the Centennial Conference tournament, but not the regular season title.” I think the experience and the hunger of the Garnet will lead them to the promised land #Mullan40. Many of you probably assumed that I would go with Fallati for the Regular season MVP, but I really think the freshman Jiung Jung deserves a ton of credit for stepping in and really being an anchor for Swarthmore all season long. He compiled a 20-8 record in singles and doubles in his freshman year and proved to be tough as nails in tight match situations. Keep up the good work Jiung and kick some butt this weekend!
Sewanee
National Ranking: 19
Blog Power Ranking: 18
Regional Ranking: 5
End of regular season grade: B-
Regular season MVP: Jack Gray
In a schedule riddled with opportunities, the Tigers really only took advantage twice by taking out a depleted #26 Kalamazoo and a #12 ranked Whitman team that is a totally different team away from Walla Walla. However they lost matches against #25 Kenyon, #29 Mary Washington, #29 Swarthmore, #17 Tufts and #1 Emory. This is why I gave them a B-. Please note that all these rankings were the ITA ranks at the time of the match. However, this team did what they needed to do in the SAA tournament and took out a hot Millsaps team in the final to punch their ticket to NCAAs. I sincerely hope we get a rematch of the early season NC Wesleyan/Sewanee matchup because I have a feeling that it will be a slug fest even though the Tigers did defeat the Battling Bishops 6-1 in the first matchup. There’s a very strong chance that both teams will end up in the Emory region and be the 2 and 3 seeds so an early round matchup is fairly probably assuming a team doesn’t get abducted by aliens before playing Thomas More. The regular season MVP has to go to Jack Gray for Sewanee. There were a ton of questions surrounding Gray and his ability to pick up right where Schober left off and I think this young man did a great job of stepping out of his predecessor’s shadow. Gray has gone 11-4 in dual matches at #1 singles and 14-9 at #1 doubles. He has earned himself the #3 spot in the region in singles and #10 spot in doubles. He is pretty much a lock for NCAAs at this point in singles and has guided his team to a 22-5 record this season. Congrats on a great season so far Mr. Gray and best of luck at NCAAs!
NC Wesleyan
National Ranking: 23
Blog Power Ranking: 21
Regional Ranking: 6
End of regular season grade: A
Regular season MVP: Sebastian Sikh
While I miss the twitter spats with the former head coach of the Battling Bishops, it seems like it was for the best that they got a new head coach and went virtually radio silent on twitter. They have only lost 3 matches all season (Sewanee, Emory and Georgia Gwinnett) and have upset Case and Hopkins. I still find myself questioning how good this team really is, but I think the match against Sewanee was a real wake up call for these boys and motivated them the rest of the way through the season. Too bad they don’t have a couple more competitive matches on the schedule to gauge where they actually stand. Will this team make a deep run at NCAAs? Probably not, but for a team that I was really expecting not much of anything from, I would say they have had a pretty darn good season. The MVP award goes to the Swede who might have the biggest serve in D3 tennis, Sebastian Sikh. He has been a difference maker since day 1 for the Bishops and this season was no exception. At 1 singles this season, he was 11-3 in dual matches and in doubles he was 15-4. Not too shabby. Unfortunately for Sikh, I don’t think he has too great of a chance at NCAAs due to lack of in region matches against ranked opponents. Regardless, he has had a very good season and a great career at NC Wesleyan!
Christopher Newport
National Ranking: 34
Blog Power Ranking: 37
Regional Ranking: 8
End of regular season grade: C+
Regular season MVP: Nick Ruzicka
A team that I called a sinking ship recently due to their losses against anyone relevant, has slowly started bailing water and gotten back on track after an 8-1 win over a depleted W&L team. This is the first time the Captains have defeated the Generals since 2008 (thanks Sonny Dearth). I still would not call this a good season for the Captains by any means, but at least they have some momentum heading into the CAC tournament. At this point, really all they can do is play their hearts out and hope that Mary Washington blinks. The Eagles have had an outstanding season and will be very hard to beat, but stranger things have happened. The junior Nick Ruzicka is my regular season MVP with a 14-5 singles and 13-6 doubles record in the regular season. While he might not get the glory playing at the top of the lineup, he will still be an integral part in this CAC tournament run. If Ruzicka can secure 2 points for the Captains, they will be in very good shape to potentially upset Mary Washington.
Washington and Lee
National Ranking: N/A
Blog Power Ranking: 31
Regional Ranking: 15
End of regular season grade: C+
Regular season MVP: Harry Shepherd
Similarly to Christopher Newport, all the hype surrounding this team after a few close matches with strong teams has been whisked away. The only difference is that the Generals don’t really have any momentum, especially after the recent suspensions for violating team rules. I thought that W&L might be able to give Sewanee a run for their money, but they couldn’t hold up in close match situations and got drubbed. You’re now looking at this team being a 4 seed potentially in the Emory region which means so long in the second round if you’re the Generals. A team that I thought could exceed expectations has now become a team that needs another year or two to grow before becoming a dangerous team that can threaten for a spot in the top 25. Sorry guys, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. On a more positive note, Harry Shepherd is a stud and despite his most recent loss to CNU’s David Reed, I still think he has a pretty good shot at making NCAAs with wins over multiple top 10 players in the region. This Generals team would be even worse off without him, so he is the real MVP of the season. #Crypto4Lyfe
Millsaps
National Ranking: N/A
Blog Power Ranking: 39
Regional Ranking: 9
End of regular season grade: A-
Regular season MVP: Davis Plummer
Major key alert! Millsaps has been unbelievably fun to follow this season and it’s sad to see their team season come to an end after their loss in the SAA finals to Sewanee. However, this has been a historic season for the Majors and they did it all with one and two star talent that was developed by hard work and dedication. Shoutout to Coach Box on the great job. This senior heavy team earned their first national ranking since 1982 and will more than likely qualify a doubles team for NCAAs for the first time ever (let me know if I’m wrong)! One of those young men is Davis Plummer who also happens to be the regular season MVP. At primarily 2 singles he went 14-4 on the regular season and at 1 doubles he went 16-2 with partner Alex Centurion. They have multiple wins over regionally ranked opponents and it would be a crying shame for the NCAA to rank them outside the top 3 for an auto bid.
Rhodes
National Ranking: N/A
Blog Power Ranking: N/A
Regional Ranking: 10
End of regular season grade: C-
Regular season MVP: Ritwik Chatterjee
Yeah, I’m gonna eat my words on this one. I hyped up this team way too much and they were pretty disappointing this season, especially after getting beat by Birmingham Southern, a team that they beat 6-3 last season. The good news is that there are no graduating seniors in the starting lineup for the Lynx, so there is room to grow next season. From now on though, I’m going to be very wary of drinking the Kool Aid based off of a stellar recruiting class. The biggest bright spot of the season was Ritwik Chatterjee. After playing lower in the lineup his freshman year, Ritwik jumped to 1 singles and was fairly successful compiling a 15-5 record this season. He was also a stud at 2/3 doubles with a 15-5 record there as well. If he continues to develop, Mr. Chatterjee will be a very good #1 in the SAA next season and definitely someone to keep on the radar going into the fall ITAs.
See, I told you that I wasn’t going to spoil the movie for you! Unless you speak Groot. Thanks for sticking around to read, and be sure to check out the blog throughout the rest of the week for power rankings, conference previews, more siblings and ridiculously dope stream of consciousness articles from real ASouth. As always, tweet at me, email me or leave a comment. Until next time, Reg ASouth out!