It’s a tough decision. Small College Nationals. The first or second day of Indoors. The first Saturday of spring break. The Stag Hen. Conference tournament Sunday. A lot goes into the ranking of which day on the DIII tennis calendar is the best, but to me there is a clear answer. NCAA Quarterfinal Monday is the best DIII day of the year! While I know it’s only eight teams, it never fails to deliver some sort of drama and usually it delivers in droves. This year should be no exception as I could make an argument for each of the eight quarterfinal teams winning the tournament, and a strong argument for five or six of them! Last night a group of the bloggers came together to give a quick Roundtable preview of the quarterfinal matchups, and today I’m here to do a little more digging. A “swing match” is a very common term used on this site, and it means the match most likely to swing the overall team outcome depending on the winner of the individual match. Seeing as Monday’s QF matches are the most important ones we’ve had all year, I felt the need to use my exhaustive Blog power to decide there will be not one but TWO swing matches in each of the quarterfinals. These are their stories…
CMS VS BOWDOIN
#2 singles: Jack Katzman (CMS) vs Jerry Jiang (Bowdoin)
This is a matchup between two of the five best #2 players in the country. Bowdoin’s recipe all year long has been get a doubles lead, rely on Urken and Jiang for two more points, and then find another point from somewhere down in the singles lineup. You’ll notice, when the Polar Bears got STOMPED by CMS earlier this year, that both Urken and Jiang lost, giving Bowdoin no shot against a much deeper Stag squad. Katzman beat Jiang 3&2 that day, which just goes to show the difference between Katz and EVERY OTHER #2 IN THE COUNTRY. Even though young Jack will certainly be favored again on Monday, we’ve seen Jiang come up clutch time and time again for Coach Smith throughout his career. I would be surprised to see Katz walk all over the senior again in this matchup. It’s not a matchup Bowdoin HAS to win to pull off the upset, but it’s just one level below that.
#6 singles: Nic Meister (CMS) vs Justin Patel (Bowdoin)
Although CMS crushed Bowdoin back in March, these two actually did not play. Patel lost to Park at #5 by a respectable score of 3&6, while Meister hadn’t yet made the Stags’ singles lineup. Given Wang’s recent reinsertion into the lineup and Fortier’s strong play this spring, Bowdoin’s most experienced starter not named Urken or Jiang finds himself holding down the anchor spot. Just like the #2 singles matchup mentioned above, the Polar Bear will still be quite an underdog, just not as big an underdog as at #3/4/5 singles. Meister has been BALLIN since he made the starting lineup, going 14-1 at a multitude of singles spots, including easy straight-set wins over Eazor (Midd) and Guzhva (Chicago). Bowdoin needs to win one of these two singles spots in order to have a chance at the upset (most realistically combined with a doubles sweep and an Urken win over Parodi). The advantage the Polar Bears have here is NCAA experience, but will that be enough in the battle of the lefties?
CHICAGO VS AMHERST
#3 singles: Charlie Pei (Chicago) vs Jayson Fung (Amherst)
This is a D3AS special, as he believes the winner of this singles match will clinch a Final-Four spot for his team. Both Pei and Fung are program veterans and have been apart of their teams through some ups and downs over the past few years. Pei is the senior and has been really good at #3 this year, going 14-4 with a losing record against CMS, Emory and Brandeis. Fung is the junior and has played a lot of #3 and #4 this spring with some pretty good results as well including wins over CMS, Midd, Wash U, Bowdoin (2x), Kenyon and Case. Fung actually has an indirect over Pei in Gordy of CMS. Seeing as each team is at least slightly favored at a couple singles spots (Chicago at #2 and #4 & Herst at #1 and #6), this veteran matchup will go a long ways in deciding an overall winner.
#5 singles: Alejandro Rodriguez (Chicago) vs Harris Foulkes (Amherst)
This is kind of the opposite of the previous matchup. Neither Rodriguez nor Foulkes has any NCAA experience, even though Rodriguez is a sophomore who played a little last year he was not a part of Chicago’s NCAA lineup, which means we could see some strong nerves from one or both of these guys. Unlike Pei vs. Fung, I think this matchup could take a variety of routes to the finish, meaning it could be a straight set win for either player, a battle of lopsided sets, or even a close three-set battle. A lot of it will come down to who handles their nerves better. Alejandro hasn’t lost a match since March, while Foulkes dropped two of his past three results, BUT Harris also has won HUGE matches for the Mammoths this year, including two DEEP in the 3rd set wins over Bowdoin (7-6) and Middlebury (6-4) to CLINCH THE MATCH FOR HIS TEAM. I’ll have to wait until the match by match preview to predict this one, but it should be fun.
EMORY VS WASH U
#2 singles: Hayden Cassone (EU) vs Bernardo Neves (Wash U)
Just like in the CMS/Bowdoin section, Cassone and Neves are two of the best #2 singles players in the country. They have played twice over the past two years, with Neves winning their match at UAA Semis in 2018 in three sets and Cassone getting the better of the Nard Dog 4&1 in the UAA Finals this spring. This match is really a fun difference of styles as Neves gets to everything and is one of the best grinders in the country, while Cassone hits the ball harder than most and his forehand has an Irish accent (fearhand). We saw what happens when Cassone is playing well when these two played earlier this year, but the loud sophomore hasn’t been unbeatable this year dropping two close matches to Yuan (Chicago) and Henry (Kzoo) and getting rolled by Noah Farrell. Neves also has a loss to Yuan (though he’s also beaten the Chicago sophomore) and dropped a couple of superbreakers on spring break against Wesleyan and Amherst. This will be an absolute battle, and is probably a spot Wash U needs to win as Emory will be favored down deeper in the lineup. My advice? Get a line judge early…
#5 singles: Andrew Esses (EU) vs Konrad Kozlowski (Wash U)
Two guys are don’t get a lot of press even though the are extremely valuable to their teams. We have a battle of bookends as Esses is a freshman and Kozlowski is finishing up his Wash U career, but when the two matched up at UAAs they left deadlocked at 4-4 in the 3rd set. Although Esses isn’t generally thought of as being a strength in the Eagle lineup, he actually hasnt lost a singles match since February all the way back at the Indoor Finals against Chicago. He picked up three wins against top-10 schools along the way in Middlebury, Brandeis and Williams, and has been up a set in both of his NCAA matches which ended unfinished. Meanwhile, Kozlowski has finally made the most of his chance to hang onto a singles spot, only losing one match this entire spring against DIII competition, and it was in a super breaker of an already decided match. He’s picked up top-15 wins against Chicago, Case, and CMU (2x) and was deep into the 3rd set against EU and Chicago at UAAs when the Bears were fighting for their NCAA lives. This will be a huge point for either team, but as Wash U is the underdog is again probably more necessary for the Fightin’ Follmers.
MIDDLEBURY VS WESLEYAN
#1 singles: Andrew Finkelman (Wes) vs Lubomir Cuba (Midd)
With all due respect to Parodi/Urken and Hillis/Jemison, this is the #1 singles matchup I’m the most excited about. That doesn’t mean that the level of tennis will be any higher, but because of what the matchup means for each team. Urken has to beat Parodi for Bowdoin to have a chance at the upset, and probably the same with Hillis over Jemison, but the winner of #Fink and #Lube will be getting his team a CRUCIAL point towards the NCAA semifinals. These two have played twice this year, both times outdoors at Middlebury, and the two split their matches. In a not-so-shocking twist, each team won the match in which they got a point from their #1 singles player. Both have been top-five players in the NE this year, which means they are likely top-10 players in the country (Cuba definitely is). Given how well Cuba has been playing of late, it will be tough to pick against him, but if anybody was going to beat him, a death by 10,000 paper cuts would be one of the ways to get him and that has Finkelman written all over it.
#5 singles: Princeton Carter (Wes) vs Nate Eazor (Midd)
Although these two teams played twice this year, we only saw this matchup once. Eazor didn’t play singles in the regular season matchup when Guo beat Carter in straight sets (and Wes still won the match 6-3). More recently, in the NESCAC semis, Nasty Nate took care of Prince in straight sets and gave Midd their 4th team point of the match. This matchup isn’t nearly the same contrast of styles as the matchup of top singles players, but more so that anybody who takes on the hurricane that is Princeton Carter is in for a dogfight. We know Prince is Wes’ leader, but last time Eazor had #TheAudacity to beat him in straight sets, so we also know the Panther sophomore, with championship NCAA experience, is more than game. We were discussing this matchup in the Blog groupchat last night and CHB offered up this nugget, “Princeton Carter is the emotional anchor for the Cardinals team, though that anchor may be attached to a cairn resting atop the Greek economy.” Make of that what you will, but make no mistake, neither of these guys are going down without a fight, and the winner might just push his team to the Final Four.