2019 Women’s Mary Washington ITA Regional Recap

If OG D3West is writing articles about regionals while curing people of their VAPI, and I haven’t even written a regionals article yet, how big of a tank does that make me? WCentral and NEW already recapped the Chicago and Northeast regional tournaments, so read their thoughts in the links above. I’m obviously too late to preview any of the regionals, but today I bring you the next best thing – the recap. The Mary Washington ITA took place last weekend, Sep 21-23, and no one was surprised the CMU swept both singles and doubles. Read more below —

Overall:

I think I said this last year too, but overall I felt like this regional was just not as competitive as I wanted and certainly not as competitive as some of the other regionals (looking at you Middlebury). With absolute domination from CMU at the top, I almost felt like I didn’t need to check the scores. There were obviously some great matches played (ie Zheng d. Kashyap and Coleman d. Rao) but overall it seemed this was CMU’s tournament and the other schools just kind of didn’t show up (I’ll talk about exceptions below). I suppose the CMU dominance isn’t unexpected given they ended last year ranked 7 in the country and the next highest team in this region is Hopkins (ranked 15), and in D3 there is a pretty big difference between 7 and 15, but part of me needs more excitement in my fall tennis.

The doubles final was an all-CMU affair. From left to right: Bin Zheng, Lindy Cornwall, Danna Taylor, Courtney Ollis.

Studs:

Danna Taylor – It would be remiss of me to talk about studs and not mention Taylor. If we didn’t already grasp this concept, Danna Taylor is the real deal.  She made it through the singles draw with ease, even against some pretty fiery competitors. She teamed up with Courtney Ollis to take the doubles title, winning a tight final against their teammates Bin Zheng and Lindy Cornwall. The real test for Taylor will be at the ITA Cup, where she will face some other cream of the crop players.

Claire Coleman – the Mary Washington sophomore obviously practiced over the summer. Entering the tournament as the 7th seed, she made a great run to the finals before falling to Taylor. She took down Taylor’s teammates Zheng and Rao en route to the finals which is impressive all by itself.  By making it the finals she booked a spot in the ITA Cup and prolonged her fall tennis season. I know spring season is a different beast but Coleman is likely looking to take the top spot in the Eagle’s lineup and give Summers a break after a year of frustrating injuries for Summers. Coleman deserves it after this weekend.

Sweet Briar’s Twitter @SBCvixens –after they started tagging me in their tweets, I experienced the most Twitter action since that time I beat D3AS in a Yu-gi-oh GIF battle. Huge shout out to freshman Kate Kotany from Hungary for winning the D flight singles title! It’s so rewarding to see the hard work that these student athletes put in pay off, and for everyone else who is reading, if you tag me on twitter or email me about your athlete’s accomplishment’s I will absolutely be hype so doo it.

D3RegASouth’s puppy – is a good dog. That’s all I have to say about that.

Sweet Briar hyped their girl Kate Kotany and now she gets a bonafide Blog shoutout.

Has Work to Do Before Spring:

Johns Hopkins – I know historically Hopkins doesn’t do well at fall regionals. I know, ok? I know it’s one of the most difficult schools in the country and fall tennis is probably everyone’s 10th priority. But for a school that consistently has it’s pick of 3 and 4 star recruits, it just boggles my mind that only 1 of their players made it to R16. #2 seed Kashyap was a finalist here a couple years ago but this year she ended up getting upset in R16. I’ve been there, it happens, but usually at least someone from the team has a good tournament. Hopkins did show a little of their talent by putting a team (Gerke and Davireddy) into the semis of the doubles draw, but for a team that 1) pulls in as much talent as everyone else and 2) never falls out of the top 15 at the end of the year, I really think they could have been more of a presence at this tournament. Idk.

CNU – last year they climbed the rankings to #24, the highest in school history, and thus made it onto my radar, which is impressive because I have a very tiny radar. Johanna Ranta-aho is their star powered leader but the #4 seed fell in R32 to CMU freshman Madeline Fidel. Otherwise they put no players past R32 of the championship singles draw. In doubles CNU put two teams into R16 but neither made it into the quarterfinals. Probably a disappointing tournament overall for CNU but not unsalvageable. They will start the year ranked #24 and lower ranked in-region teams like Swarthmore and Sewanee will be hungry to take their spot. They’ll have to stay focused if they don’t want to fall in the rankings.

Claire Coleman (UMW) booked her spot in the ITA Cup by reaching the singles finals.

Players to Watch:

Taylor Garcia – the Washington and Lee sophomore made the quarterfinals of the singles draw before falling in two very tight sets to Danna Taylor. I like what I’m seeing from Garcia and I hope she uses this loss as motivation for the spring.

Bin Zheng/Lindy Cornwall – This CMU team made the finals of the doubles draw and very nearly took the championship. I hope they are able to continue their success at the ITA Cup. In singles, both made waves too as Zheng took out #2 seed Anjie Kashyap and Cornwall earned an impressive win over Valerie Marshall (W&L). Cornwall didn’t see much playing time during her freshman campaign but we can certainly expect to see these two in the starting lineup come February.

Lauren James – do I seem to CMU biased in this article? Because I feel very CMU biased right now. Lauren James is a CMU freshman hailing from Florida who made a pretty under-the-radar run to the semi-finals in the singles draw before bowing out to Danna Taylor. She had some pretty solid wins over Mikos (W&L) and Kassan (Swarthmore). Not sure where I see her in the CMU lineup yet but she’ll be in there somewhere.

Taylor Garcia (W&L) started off a strong sophomore campaign by reaching the quarters.

Remaining Questions:

1) What happened CMU’s highly anticipated freshman Kritika Chhabra? She isn’t listed on the roster so perhaps it’s safe to assume that she ended up somewhere else. Fortunately the other CMU freshmen seem to be handling themselves just fine.

2) Can Mary Washington put together another 2019 early spring season? They had one of the hottest early spring season’s last year, climbing up the rankings to #12. This is a team that has shown us that nabbing the top recruits isn’t a must to have a successful team, and many different players up and down the lineup were stepping up for UMW last year. Shout out to Coach Art for participating in my coaching poll as well. With the rise of Claire Coleman this year, UMW should be gunning for the likes of Kenyon and Hopkins, who are currently sitting right above them in the rankings.

3) ?Washington and Lee? – I’m not quite sure what to think of this W&L team just yet. I like what I saw from Taylor Garcia, but I’m still waiting for Valerie Marshall (daughter of blog celeb Joanne Marshall) to snap out of her sophomore slump and play like she did her freshman year. I think this team needs to break the Top 20 again this year. Make it happen Coach Ness.

Do you want to know how I write these articles? Like most things in my life, efficiency > quality. I usually set a timer for 1.5 hours and at the end of that time, I give up. So if you ever feel like my articles are unfinished, now you know why. My time has run out for today so I leave you with the above, un-proofread and unedited, but from my heart. As always, let me know your thoughts in an email or comment. Also, another shameless plug for our awesome new writer, @d3womenscentral. She’s the real deal, has some fresh ideas, and probably proofreads her own writing. Follow her on twitter, send her emails, send her care packages, all of the above!

-ASW

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