Happy Wednesday, boys and girls. One of the many benefits of being D3NE (besides all the groupies) is that I have longer to finish the dreaded season previews because most of my teams don’t start playing matches until mid-March. I always save the national champion for last (look for my Middlebury preview to come later this week) but there was some strategic planning for my penultimate preview as well. Who is the team with the most question marks? Who is the team that has a high ceiling and could make an NCAA tournament run, but could also flame out and miss the tournament all together? While Williams and Bowdoin are interesting regression candidates, no team in the NESCAC has quite as big a range of feasible ways to end the season (as of 03/05/19) as the Wesleyan Cardinals. They lost a big class to graduation, but brought in a very solid group of freshmen who (for the Cards’ sake) need to make an immediate impact. As we’ve seen from indoors, the Pool-C contenders didn’t do anything to distance themselves from the pack, and although Coach Fried may now be wishing he scheduled PP this year, they will have more than enough opportunities to put up or shut up in 2019. We know they’re well coached, we know they play in the toughest conference, we know they are currently the #9 team in the country. At this point, that’s about all we know for sure, which is what makes this season so darn intriguing.
LOCATION: Middletown, Connecticut
COACH: Mike Fried (7th season)
COACH’S DAD: @fried_len. He gets a shoutout as the only parent of a coach (to my knowledge) to interact with us on Twitter. AND he’s certainly the only parent of a coach to unfollow us! Mr. Fried, I don’t know what we did, but we miss you. Please come back to us!
ASSISTANT COACH(es): (Captain) Steve Rogers (4th spring), (Blog Boy) Ben Shapiro (2nd season) and (Star-Lord) C.J. Williams (1st season). Shoutout to noted Blog enthusiast and perennially sad Baltimore sports fan Paul Burgin for bringing Wes’ 3rd assistant coach to my attention.
TWITTER HANDLE: @CardsTennis
ITA NATIONAL RANKING: 9th
ITA REGIONAL RANKING: 4th
BLOG POWER RANKING: 9th
2017-2018 FINISH: 5th in the NESCAC regular season (including 5-4 losses to Amherst and Midd), exacted revenge on Amherst in the QFs before losing to Bowdoin in the semis, and ended the year as one of the first teams out of NCAAs
TWEET LENGTH REVIEW OF THE FALL:
STOCK WATCH: HOLD. Not the best fall, but nothing to dissuade ardent supporters. This stock will likely move more during their first week of play than it will for the entire rest of the season, so now is the time to either buy heavily or sell heavily…
KEY ADDITIONS: Noah Lilienthal (4-star from New Jersey), Zachary Lieb (3-star from New York), Max Lee (0-star from Middletown, Connecticut), Peter Anker (Norway).
KEY DEPARTURES: Steven Chen (#1 singles/#2 doubles), Cam Daniels (#4 singles/#2 doubles), Tiago Eusebio (#3 singles/#1 doubles), Win Smith (#3 doubles).
BEST CASE SCENARIO: The young guns come out firing, Wes beats Kenyon, Trinity, Wash U and CMU on spring break before dropping at tight match to CMS. They sneak past Bowdoin and Williams, losing tight matches against Amherst and Midd, earning the 3 seed at NESCACs. The Cards then avenge their loss to the Mammoths, and finish as the number 2 team from the NESCAC, earning a top 6 seed at NCAAs!
WORST CASE SCENARIO: Last year all over again. Wes loses tough early matches to Kenyon, Wash U and CMU, dropping them down to the #15 range, They get smoked by the top 4 of the NESCAC and lose a tight 5-4 match at Tufts, leaving their NESCACs fate in the air considering the Cards don’t play Bates this spring. No postseason and an extremely disappointing season in Middletown.
BOLD PREDICTION: Wesleyan will make NCAAs again this year. How bold is it to predict that the #9 team in the country will make NCAAs? Well, they will likely have to move up in order to do so, and they didn’t make it last year so I’m sticking with at least mostly bold. As you’ll see with the lineup prediction, a lot rests on young shoulders but whether it’s Bowdoin, Williams or Wash U I’m hoping and believing that the Cards can get one of those three to push into the top 8 and onto the right side of Pool-C.
NOT-SO-BOLD PREDICTION: Peter Anker will end up being VERY good. Ok, we know he’s already pretty darn good, but losing a stud like Steven Chen can leave the program in a state of flux. Anker and Lilenthial will be counted on a lot this year, and I think Peter has a good shot to end up playing number 1 ahead of #Fink. These two predictions sort of go together, because in order for Wes to make NCAAs it will have meant that Anker had at the very least a good season near the top of the singles lineup.
3 RANDOM THOUGHTS
- This is an extremely young team. Scroll down a bit and see that I have five of the six starters as either freshmen or sophomores. The next contenders for the lineup are also freshmen and sophomores. I know I say this a lot, but man this team could be good in a year or two. That said, the young folks are going to need a leader, and look no further than the Little Prince A.K.A. The Hurricane A.K.A. A.K.A Princeton Carter. Whether or not Prince is in the singles lineup (for the record I believe he will be), his off-court captaincy will likely be even more important than what he does on court in 2019.
- What doubles will we see this year? I’ve talked a lot about the graduated Cards, and losing multiple singles players hurts, but how about losing four different doubles players? One of the knocks on junior players entering college is that they don’t know how to play doubles. Let’s hope that the boys have played A LOT of dubs over the winter because they’re going to need some solid doubles results right out of the gate. As a rule I don’t predict doubles teams in season previews, and with Wes it would be like blindly throwing darts. That said, Carter and Lilienthal showed us something at Tufts/Brandeis, so I hope we get to see more of them this year. I also expect Roji and Anker to be in the doubles lineup in some spot, probably along with Sweeney and Fleischman, but more on that later.
- Almost every match can make/break the season. If everything goes according to the experts (us lol), there will be about six different MATCH OF THE YEAR candidates for the Cards as their season progresses. Kenyon, then Wash U, then (if they lose either of those matches) CMU, then Bowdoin, Williams and Amherst. Of those six matches, Wes doesn’t play a single one of them as a road team. The first three are on spring break, and the three NESCAC matches are all in Middletown. Bowdoin and Williams are a little down, while Amherst looks formidable, but any of those three will have to struggle to beat Wesleyan at home, especially in inclement weather.
- Peter Anker, freshman, UTR=11.74, range=1-2. I know some might be a little shocked at this off the bat, but here me out. I think Anker has the potential to be great. I’m not saying that Fink doesn’t also share that potential, but at this point he’s a little more of a known cause. Also, I think there’s a chance that if Fink played #1 and Anker played #2 that Wesleyan would go 0/2 in some matches, whereas with Anker at 1 and Fink at 2 they should earn at least one point per match from those two spots. Peter had the best fall of any of the Cards, going to the 3rd round of the ITA (lost to Farrell in three sets) and the semifinals of Tufts/Brandeis (lost to Wei in straight sets). If Anker is a true #1, this team has NCAA written all over it. What better way to figure that out than a trial by combat against the likes of Hillis and Levine in his first week?
Andrew Finkelman, sophomore, UTR=12.17, range=1-2. As I said above, this one is a bit of a gamble seeing as Fink has the big experience edge, but to me his game is suited better for the #2 spot this year, where he should be able to rack up the wins. Fink basically didn’t lose any matches he was supposed to win last year. His losses included Downing, Cassone, Barr, Tercek, Katzman and some of the best #2’s in the country. With another year of experience those close losses against the best #2’s will hopefully turn into wins. Maybe Andrew made the leap in the offseason and will turn into a topnotch #1, but his fall (much like most of the Cards) left something to be desired. He lost in the 2nd round of the ITA to Cauneac (projected MIT #1-2) and didn’t play at Tufts/Brandeis. Whoever ends up playing #2 will need to provide a lot of wins for Wes as the lineup uncertainty only increases from here.- Adrian Roji, sophomore, UTR=11.72, range=3-5. Roji is one of three returning starters from last year’s team (along with Fink & Prince), and I’m looking for the sophomore to make a leap in 2019. He came on strong last year, after I didn’t project that he would even start, and had a decent fall. He beat Rozovsky (projected Bowdoin #5-7) at the ITA and pushed Sorkin (projected Tufts #1 and overall No. 1 player in the country) to a super breaker in the 2nd round. He then retired after one tiebreaker set against Fung (projected Amherst #3-4) in the 1st round at Tufts/Brandeis. As a freshman, he played a lot of close matches at #5, but didn’t end up winning most of them, which will hopefully provide the proper motivation for a super sophomore year.
- Noah Lilienthal, freshman, UTR=11.08, range=3-5. Noah could easily also slot in at #3 singles this spring, and in fact I’d say it’s close to a tossup between him and Roji. Lilienthal earned a #9-16 seed at the ITA, but then was unceremoniously knocked from that perch in the first round by fellow freshman Harris Foulkes (projected Amherst #5-7). He also had a tough draw at Tufts/Brandeis where he lost to Farrell in the 1st round. However, he redeemed himself with a big time dubs performance along with Prince, when the duo won the A-Flight. Unless Prince balls out, I think Noah and Roji should be pretty safely ensconced in the middle of this lineup, and he’s just another set of young shoulders that Wes will rely upon this spring.
Princeton Carter, senior, UTR=11.43, range=4-7. The one upperclassmen in the projected starting lineup, I’ve already talked about how much responsibility is bestowed upon Azor Ahai. Prince didn’t play singles at the ITA, and won one round in the B-Flight at Tufts/Brandeis before losing to Kogan (Projected Brandeis#2-4 but actually Brandeis #not on the team anymore). He legitimately has more experience than the rest of the starting lineup put together at this point, so I’m not worried about his so-so fall. He’ll bring the energy and hopefully for the Fried faithful will bring the wins at the bottom of the lineup like he has done for most of his career.- Zach Lieb, freshman, UTR=11.85, range=5-7. Total guesswork here, as the #6 guy could be any number of people and probably should be the one who had the best offseason, but given the fall track record you have to go with Lieb. Although he’s yet another freshman, he was the 5th Cardinal to play singles at the ITA (where he lost 3&4 to Sean Wei, projected Amherst #1, in the 1st round). He also won a round in the B-Flight singles at Tufts/Brandeis, before losing 11-9 in a super to Go (projected MIT #4-5). He had a more productive fall in terms of singles than any of the names listed in the next section, so for now, Mr. Lieb, welcome to the lineup!
IN THE HUNT: Zach Fleischman (sophomore, UTR=11.47), Ali Mooraj (freshman, UTR=10.97), Marcus Sweeney (sophomore, UTR=10.95), and Jonathan Holtzman (junior, UTR=11.25). Mooraj & Fleischman were the two other singles players at Tufts/Brandeis, and Fleischman & Sweeney both participated on the doubles side of things at the ITA and at Tufts/Brandeis. Neither Zach or Ali got anything going singles-wise, although Zach did win a B-Flight consolation bracket pro-set at Tufts/Brandeis. Overall, I think Marcus is likely to start in the doubles lineup, and Zach is probably more of a first man off the bench. Although after thinking a little more about the starting doubles teams, it wouldn’t shock me to see both Sweeney and Fleischman in at #2 and/or #3 doubles.
I mentioned this in my 3 random things section, but this is, once again, a BEAST of a schedule for the Cards. They open next week with Kenyon, Trinity Tx, Wash U and CMU in four consecutive days, which is just insane. Usually I would say that Kenyon and Trinity are the only “must wins” but after CMU’s disappointing Indoors, that is probably another one as well. Yes, given that the Cards have their entire NESCAC schedule ahead of them after spring break, a 2-2 finish is not the end of the world, but it would be putting themselves behind the 8-ball off the bat. I’ll have a Wesleyan spring break preview over the weekend that focuses more on these matches after we’ve seen their actual lineup against Kenyon. In that match, the Cards can’t start slow, because going down after doubles puts them in a tough spot, especially against a team who is tough at the top.
Wes finishes spring break with Ithaca, and then returns home for a match with (double checks notes) CMS! In fact, the Cards host five matches in 10 days, with the only close ones being the bookended CMS and Bowdoin. The day after Bowdoin they head over to play the Jumbos in Medford. Given the strength of the rest of their schedule, this is not a date most have circled, but that might change after the Tufts/Brandeis match this weekend. We don’t know exactly how good Tufts is yet, and given their depth and recent doubles improvement they could present a problem for Wes.
April comes in like a divorcee after a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, leaving the Cards zero room for error. At Middlebury, home vs Williams and home vs Amherst will likely solidify Wesleyan’s postseason fate, whatever that may be. A few easier matches to finish the regular season in Trinity, Colby and Hamilton, before NESCACs back at Midd. It’s also possible that nothing will be decided until NESCACs, and Wes will be in a position where the 4/5 1st round of the conference tournament could act as a de-facto NCAA play-in match. While it might finally cause Coach Fried’s inevitable stress ulcer, it would be a heck of a way to end a season!
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