Friday Night Blurbs with D3RegionalNEC

Alright time for another no BS, hard hitting D3RegionalNEC Friday night special. We’re bouncing around to hit all of my teams in one way or another and update everyone on what’s happened since I last posted, so let’s get to it! 

Full Disclosure: I’m tired so I’m going to bed without proofreading this!

Skidmore and RPI

I’m combining these two since the only significant match they’ve played lately was against each other. And what a match it was, with Skidmore winning 5-4 thanks to an epic 7-5, 3-6, 7-6(5) win from freshman Noah Williamson over Brian Niguidula at #4 for the clinch. First of all, it was an absolutely EGREGIOUS oversight on my part not to recognize Noah with some Player of the Week love for his clutch play. I genuinely feel bad about that! Anyway, major props to Noah (and Brian) for leaving it all out there.
So where does that match leave us? Well, as you know I picked RPI to win the Liberty League before the season started, and in my last article I had significantly cooled on the Engineers while also starting to really believe in Skidmore. Right now, I think RPI is starting to play a little bit closer to the level we expected of them, while Skidmore is regressing back to about where they should be as well after an above-expectations spring break trip. I’d still say Skidmore is a little better than expect and RPI not quite as good as I thought they’d be, which is why they combined for such a close match and why I expect their next match in the Liberty League final to be just as tight. Five of the six singles matches went 3, with the only straight sets match 6-4, 7-6, and with only a month left in the season, barring any major injuries or other issues, these teams seemed destined for another battle. And yes, I am writing them into the final—Hobart and the rest of the Liberty League has done nothing to suggest they can hang with either team. (my opinion subject to change once Hobart actually plays RPI and Skidmore over the next few weeks).
As far as what’s coming up for both teams, Skidmore has Hobart next weekend while RPI is making a trip down to play Johns Hopkins, which is a great chance for them to play another team that has been very pedestrian (for them) but is still hanging on to a solid ranking. I definitely don’t remember seeing that match of their schedule last time I looked, so that’s a great last minute addition for the Engineers as they look to get as match tough as possible.

Rochester

Pretty quiet from Rochester since their spring break trip, but a big weekend is coming up as the ‘Jackets host both Case and Stevens. You know you are gaining some respect when ranked teams are willing to make a long trip to come play you. I have no doubt that the Jackets will come out against Case fired up and believing they can win, as they’ve been unbeaten against D3 teams this year. While it should be a fiery, energetic match, I don’t think Rochester will be able to hang with Case, even with home court advantage. I feel like this is the type of match where Todd will have his guys fired the F up to send a message, especially since Case needs every win they can get to keep their Pool C hopes alive. I see this one ending either 7-2 or 8-1 for Case. It wouldn’t shock me to see the classic 2-1 doubles lead and then lose 7-2, tbh.
Against Stevens, Rochester is the clear favorite in my mind. I’ll get to Stevens a bit more below, but this is a team that is reeling after a tough spring break trip and while talent-wise I actually think the two teams aren’t that far apart, Rochester is a team that seems to be finding ways to win this year, while Stevens doesn’t seem to know how to win at the moment. The Ducks best hope is that Case completely demoralizes Rochester on Saturday and then the Jackets come out flat.

TCNJ

Not much has happened for the Lions lately…besides winning their biggest match of the year and pretty much being the first team to unofficially punch their ticket to NCAAs. Their trip down to Fredricksburg was extremely successful, despite an 8-1 loss to hosts Mary Washington (who are just a class ahead of TCNJ). Their tight 6-3 win over UW-Whitewater, along with all of their 5-4 wins (including one over Haverford last week) put them in total control of the first Pool B spot. Shoutout to POTW Matt Puig on a big performance on the weekend, along with Mitchel Sanders, who has taken some lumps at #1 through the years but came through big time against the Warhawks. TCNJ can pretty much set the cruise control from here on out, though I’m sure they would love to get wins in their remaining big matches against NC Wesleyan (at home!), Rochester, and Stevens. They can pretty much afford to lose all three, but if they manage to win all three I could see them putting themselves in position to get a #2 seed at NCAAs, depending on geography (it’s almost BRACKETOLOGY time!!!! @D3AtlanticSouth)

Stevens

The Ducks lost to Grinnell and Goucher and had to battle against Luther during their spring break trip to Florida. For a team that was TOP 20 a few years ago, that’s a tough pill to swallow. But that’s the way it is for Stevens in a post-Heinrich world, and from what I can tell/what I’ve been told, the Ducks were missing three or four starters during those matches. As their win over Haverford this week proves, Stevens is better than those spring break results, but still, this is probably the weakest version of the Ducks in recent memory. Even with that said, they’ll still cruise to the Empire 8 title before moving conferences next year. It’s too bad Ithaca isn’t still in the E8, as I think they could actually give Stevens a run for their money this year, but such is life. I don’t want to be too negative though—let’s also point out the nice freshman year Marc Feliu Gomez has put together at the top of the lineup. His only loss this spring to a D3 player? Zalenski (Kenyon). While we’re talking individuals, I also need to call out the ridiculousness of Gomez and his partner Bryan Szayna being ranked #4 in the Northeast. They have ZERO wins in region all spring, and lost 8-1 to Mary Washington a few weeks ago. Yes, they made the final of the Northeast ITA (a weak ITA), but they don’t have any significant wins from that run either.  I’m gonna go ahead and say it: the rankings have had a Stevens bias for a while now. It’s not an easy job by any means, but there’s no way these guys should be ranked #4, even at this point in the season.

Hobart

I’m running out of steam here so I’m going to make these blurbs even more to the point. On spring break Hobart got wrecked 9-0 by Caltech and beat Whitter 6-3 and Chapman 7-2, while getting rained out against Oxy.  Ho hum. They also host Case this weekend, and I think the Spartans are going to come into Geneva and torch the Statesmen. While I think Rochester can at least match Case in the energy department (though not the tennis), I am less confident in Hobart’s fire. That’s a bad matchup against Case, so I think this is a 9-0 or 8-1 match. A win for Dubrovsky at 1 is certainly on the table, and would be very nice for Alan as he looks to build his case for NCAAs.

Carleton

Carleton wrapped up their spring break today with a 5-4 loss to Sewanee after taking a 2-1 doubles lead. Leo was Leo with wins in singles and doubles, and overall Carleton showed what I have suspected—that they are probably around a top-25 quality team. Down at/in/on Hilton Head they took care of business with dominant wins over Allegheny, Ramapo, Oberlin, Union, and DePauw. No frills, just good solid wins. That’s what good teams do.  In my last article I said I thought the Oberlin match would show us whether Carleton was legit or not and that I didn’t think they could hang with Sewanee. Clearly I underestimated the Knights! Shoutout to them for letting the racquets do the talking (and also shoutout for some of the most hilariously poorly formatting score update tweets in history!) Not much coming up in the near future, and while there are still some interesting matches down the road in April, I’ll save my commentary on those for another time.

Coe

The Kohawks have been a snoozer team for me all year. I said at the beginning of the season that if you want me to write about you, you gotta do something interesting. Unfortunately, Coe hasn’t done too much of that. A 5-4 loss to Augustana was somewhat surprising, but Augie has been playing well, so that was only a mild upset in my eyes. The Kohawks 7-2 win over Rose-Hulman was at least something, but when it’s almost April and that’s your best win, it’s not the sign of a great year. You know I’d LOVE to say that maybe this is the year that Luther beats Coe in the conference tournament, but if I’m being honest I don’t see it happening—Coe is still much more talented.

UW-Whitewater

Tough loss for the Warhawks against TCNJ, but what a way to follow it up with a 5-4 win over Bates! I’ve been impressed with the resilience of this team, and I think it’s a reflection of a strong culture and good coaching. Despite not being close to where they were several years ago in the glory years, UWW still competes extremely well and gets the most out of their guys. In my eyes, they are a model program for D3 tennis. Unfortunately, the good vibes died off a bit as the Warhawks fell to Oberlin yesterday, but luckily some excellent scheduling means that they are still in control of their own destiny as far as getting the second Pool B spot goes. While TCNJ is pretty much locked in for the first spot, the second spot is UW-Whitewater’s to lose. The obvious “big match” is against UC-Santa Cruz next week in Iowa (I’m so pumped this is happening), and while that is kind of a de-facto play in, I also want to point out that UW-Eau Claire is in the conversation as well, and I could see them pulling the upset of UW-Whitewater on the right day. If UWW beats Cruz and UW-Eau Claire beats Whitewater, we could see the Blugolds dancing. That’s a stretch, but a 5-4 loss to Carleton suggests that Eau Claire is solid enough to have a shot. We should have a better idea of it all in the next two weeks, but for the Warhawks it is simple: beat UC-Satnta Cruz, UW-Eau Claire, and UW-La Crosee, and you are in.