Frankly, I’m pretty proud of my self that I’m 4/4 on this crazy endeavor I’ve set out on. This next preview is on another team I’ve had to do a great deal of research on to write this, but hey, I’m learning! NYU had a hot season last year, but I’m interested to see how they follow up with new freshman and no graduated seniors (though they did have some key lineup losses from what I can tell). Anyways, I did my best to dive into the archives and see what I could dig up on this team to provide some even remotely insightful things to say. Let’s take a look!
Also want to give a huge shoutout to my fellow women’s writers on producing some fire content in the past few days – check out their season previews. They’re veterans compared to me, so I can only assume their analysis is way more interesting and on point.
Location: New York, NY
Coach: Horace Choy (with a Blog fav, Matt DeMichiel as one of the Assistant Coaches!)
Twitter Handle: None(?)
ITA National Ranking: 20
ITA Regional Ranking: 10
2017-18 finish: NYU had a fantastic season last year with some big wins over Colgate, Brandeis and Skidmore during the regular season. They struggled in the post-season, though, with losses to Chicago and Brandeis, but beat Rochester to finish 7th in the UAA.
Key additions: None! Judging from their roster, NYU is loaded with a very upperclassmen-heavy team
Key departures: NYU lost some players, although not to graduation. Names missing on the roster this year include Christina Brumbaugh, Anandini Chawla (#6 singles) and Vanessa Scott (#4/5 singles, #1 doubles)
Bold prediction: NYU will make a spirited run to the 5th place match at UAAs, ruffling some feathers and avenging a disappointing end to last season.
Lineup analysis:
Anna Maria Buraya, range: #1-2
Buraya had a great season last year, and she was only a freshman! She had some huge wins including over Brandeis’ Neergaard (twice) and Chicago’s Claire Handa. Judging from NYU’s schedule, I expect Buraya to have another great season and hopefully secure some important points for her team.
Coco Kulle, range: #1-3
During her sophomore year campaign, Kulle lost only one match in the spring – a three-setter to Chicago’s Marjorie Antohi. Now that’s impressive. The top of this NYU lineup looks to be absolutely stacked, and I’m sure Coach Choy is looking to these youngsters to lead his team this year.
Fleura Shiyanova, range: #1-3
At this point, I shouldn’t be surprised that the NYU lineup absolutely crushed last season (I mean, they had an incredible winning record). Shiyanova, like her teammates, also had an awesome season last year, and going into her last season, I can guess she’ll be hoping to step it up.
Rupa Ganesh, range: #3-5
Ganesh’s key losses last season were versus Chicago and Brandeis – two UAA foes. If NYU wants to have a better finish at UAAs this year, they’re going to have to step it up against those opponents, especially those closer to them in the rankings (i.e., Brandies). Ganesh has another year of experience under her belt, let’s hope that confidence helps her against those key rivals.
Judy Kam, range: #4-6
Kam played all over the bottom of the lineup last year, which makes it a little hard to predict where she’ll play this year. She had quite a bit of success at #6 singles last year with a big win over Chicago and a tight loss to Brandeis, so we’ll see how she settles into her season this spring.
Kate Shaffer, range: #5-6
Shaffer was in and out of the lineup last year at #6 singles. But with the departure of Vanessa Scott, Shaffer, and maybe some of her teammates, will likely be seeing some more time on the court. When she did play, Shaffer had mixed results, but NYU will need a solid player at #6 to help them through some of their closer battles this year.
Schedule analysis:
NYU opens their season with a matchup against Haverford at the end of February. I’m pretty confident they’ll come away with the W, but they’ll have to quickly refocus for a challenge in Christopher Newport the following day. That match versus the Captains will give us our first indication of the fitness and strength of the NYU squad, and will likely set the tone for the rest of the season.
NYU then has a string of fairly routine, must-win matches against teams such as Swarthmore, Wellesley and TCNJ before their showdown with rivals Brandeis. They then have a few weeks to regroup before heading to UAAs, where I’m sure they’re hoping to improve upon last year’s 7th place finish.
Awesome article! NYU is a team that typically flies under my radar so thanks for doing an article on them. Will be interesting to see how they stack up against their UAA opponents this year. Seems like they play a pretty sparse schedule, wonder what the reasoning is for that since it probably hurts them in the late season.