I’m back with another ASouth women’s preview and I’m pretty excited to do this one. Christopher Newport (CNU) has always flown below my radar as they produced some regionally strong players but were never really involved in the national conversation. However, over the past couple of years, the addition of Johanna Ranta-aho has given the Captains just enough star power to climb their way into the national rankings, ending the 2018 season with the programs highest ever national ranking of #24. As much as I would like to know everything about every team in my region, I have neither the time nor the brain power to do so, so I must admit I needed a fair bit more research to put this preview together, and I apologize in advance for any gross oversights.
Location: Newport News, VA
Coach: David Weiner (2nd season as head coach)
ITA National Ranking: 24
ITA Regional Ranking: 7
Twitter Handle: @CNUtennis (joint account with men’s team, solid mix of articles/pictures but all the score updates seem to be for men, pls change this guys thanks)
2017-18 finish: The Captains advanced to the finals of the CAC Championships before falling to Mary Washington by a score of 1-5, thus missing out on the NCAA tournament. However, they did finish with their highest ever national ranking of #24, and were able to send then-sophomore Johanna Ranta-aho to the NCAA Singles Championship tournament, where she lost in the first round to Nicole Tan from CMS.
Key additions: There are a lot of freshman on the roster this year and a transfer junior. The only matches the freshmen played were regionals so I’m just going to list everyone: Olivia Reed (junior transfer from Indiana Wesleyan University), Amanda Yermal (2 star from VA), Alison Burgess (2 star from LA), Ana-Clara Borga (1 star from MD), Maygan Brewer (1 star from LA), and Reagan Delp (no star info, from VA), Lucy Davis (no star info, from VA)
Key departures: Claire Dockrill (#5-6 singles), Alexandra Drye (#1 dubs, #6 singles), McKinney Harwood (#2 singles, #1 dubs), Kate Huck (#3 singles, #2 dubs), Meili Konell (#4-#6 singles), Emily Morgan (#3 dubs), Isabelle Wessel (#4-#5 singles,#3 dubs)
Bold prediction: The Captains will continue to climb the rankings with an impassioned win over Johns Hopkins in April. They will meet Mary Washington in the CAC finals again and even on my boldest of days I don’t see them winning this match. I think it will be very close but the Captains will fall by a 3-5 or a 4-5 score.
Lineup analysis:
Based on my Key Departures section, it seems like there will be a complete overhaul of the lineup, with the exception of Ranta-aho at #1 singles. However, this may not be a bad thing, and there is an overabundance of freshmen and a transfer junior who likely can do just as well as last year’s crop of seniors. Again, just a disclaimer that I don’t know much about this team, so this lineup is probably complete bogus but I’m doing my best.
1.Johanna Ranta-aho, range: #1
This one is pretty easy. Ranta-aho finished last year ranked No. 31 in singles in the Nation and No. 7 in the Atlantic South region. She went 15-3 in dual matches last year at the #1 singles, including wins against Redlands, Mary Washington, and Johns Hopkins. She took losses against regional rivals CMU and Washington and Lee, but she showed that she will stay competitive even when her team is up against an opponent that outranks them.
2. Amanda Yermal, range #2-3
Yermal is one of the freshman who experienced some success at the fall regional tournament, dispatching No. 2 seed Valerie Marshall in the second round before falling in the third round to Sophia Strickland from Hopkins.
3. Olivia Reed, range #2-3
Reed is the junior transfer student who also upended a top seed at regionals, taking out No. 3 seed Sophie Brown from Swarthmore before falling to Beata Liberchuk from CMU. Reed was previously part of NAIA No. 11 ranked Indiana Wesleyan University, so she is used to being part of a winning team. This experience will hopefully translate well to the D3 tennis scene.
4. Allison Burgess, range #4-6
This is where I become a lot less clear about the Captain’s lineup. However, Burgess won a round at Regionals in the Championship draw and if Coach Weiner thinks highly enough of her to put her in the Championship Draw then he’ll probably think highly enough of her to put her in the lineup. She’ll likely be in the mid- to bottom-half of the lineup but definitely seems to be one of the strongest in the large group of freshmen.
5/6. Reagan Delp, Lily Schreiber, Kara Ferner, range #4-6
At this point I’m honestly just guessing. These three were all in the championship draw at regionals, picking up wins in the consolation draw. Both Ferner (So.) and Schreiber (Jr.) saw some playing time in the bottom half of the lineup last year and will likely see the same this year.
Schedule analysis:
The Captains play a schedule filled with regional opponents and plenty of opportunities to improve their national ranking. They come out of the gate strong in mid-February with matches against D1 George Mason, #18 Washington and Lee, and Virginia Wesleyan University. The results against George Mason don’t matter, and the Captains shouldn’t lose much sleep over VWU, but Washington and Lee this early in the season is a huge opportunity for the Captains to make a statement. I worry about the bottom half of the lineup in this match. Ranta-aho has proven she can hang at the top of the lineup, but I think Washington and Lee will just be too deep for CNU to take out this year.
Even if they lose to the Generals, the ladies of CNU still have plenty of opportunities to win matches against nationally ranked opponents. The following weekend, they make a trip up to New York to play against #20 NYU. Now, all I know about NYU is what I read from D3NEW’s article, and it seems like this will also be a really tough one for the Captains, especially away. I think the top of the lineup will be close but the Captains will once again run into trouble with depth. This has the potential to be a very close match though, and CNU will have the benefit of already having played 4 tough matches in their season.
The following week the Captains go west for their spring break trip in beautiful Southern California. Here they play against Caltech, #33 Chapman, and University of Redlands. Last year they beat all three of these teams by a score of 7-2 or 6-3. Caltech did bring in a strong recruiting class with 3 3-star players, but I’m not sure that will be enough to push them into the W column. I think the Captains will have played enough matches prior to spring break to be sharp, and I think these will be 3 fairly routine wins for them.
When they return from spring break they will host a bunch of regional foes until CAC tournament at the end of April. Matches to keep an eye out for are CAC champion #17 Mary Washington, #11 Carnegie Mellon, #23 Johns Hopkins University, and CAC contender Salisbury University. I’ve said this before but although I’m really impressed by CNU’s recent improvements as a team, I still think they’re at least a year away from the top 20, as they really don’t have the depth to back up their stars at the top of the lineup. I think they will get 3 or 4 matches off of Mary Wash but at the end of the day will not be able to hang with them at the bottom of the lineup.
CMU will likewise overwhelm the Captains, but what I’m really interested to see is the #23 Johns Hopkins match. I’ve also said this before but Hopkins has been pretty quiet as a team lately. Just a few years ago they were ranked in the top 5 in the country, so it’s a little odd to me, as someone who follows D3 tennis more than the average person but has a limited attention span so I don’t really pay all that close attention to teams who aren’t doing well, that they fell so far. What happened? Hopkins is a great school so they will bring in decent recruits no matter what. It’s very hard for me to predict what will happen in this match that pits a team on the rise in CNU against a team on the fall. Last year Hopkins won this match 8-1, and just based on that this match won’t be as close as the rankings suggest, and Hopkins will win routinely. However, I am strongly hoping for CNU to prove me wrong. Finally, I think it’s worth mentioning Salisbury because to me they are the 3rd best team in the CAC conference, and will definitely have their eyes on CNU both as a way to get to the CAC finals but also as a way to climb their way back into the rankings. I think CNU will win the match but Salisbury might pick off a few matches, especially at the bottom of the lineup.
The Captains will most likely finish their season with a 2nd place finish in the CAC tournament and not get a Pool C bid into NCAAs. However, depending on how she plays throughout the year, Ranta-aho will likely get another shot in the NCAA individual tournaments. I make no assumptions about doubles teams, and Ranta-aho actually played #2 doubles last year instead of #1, but it’s not inconceivable that CNU will send a doubles team to NCAAs as well.
And that’s the season. I feel like I was kind of negative in this preview in predicting all these losses and I really hope that I’m wrong. Like I said above, this is a team that is good and is working very hard to crack the top 20, but they’re just not there yet. It’s a function of depth and experience – aside from Ranta-aho, there are basically no returners that played consistently in the lineup last year, so we will see a very young team stepping into some pretty large shoes. Maybe it will be a different story next year but I think the Captains should count their season successful if they maintain their #24 rank, which is already a huge accomplishment. Once again, all I know about this team is what I’ve read while writing this article, so please let me know all the egregious errors I made in the comments below! Until next time!
-D3ASW
VWU is D3, in the ODAC.
Oh yes I had a senior moment there. Good catch! I’ll fix it