Hello again, and Happy Holidays, readers! As you finish up your last minute Christmas shopping, our gift to you is a few season previews to read while you’re watching holiday movie re-runs for the umpteenth time or sitting by the fireplace watching below average college football. Recently we’ve had previews for Bates, Hopkins, CMS and a Pool B preview. Tonight we’ll be heading back to Maine and previewing the Colby Mules! Though Colby has had some decent teams over the past few years, they’ve been unable to recreate the magic of the 2013-2014 team that reached the top 25. Does this year’s team have the juice to bring the Mules back into the national rankings? Without further ado, lets start our DEEP DIVE into the 2019-2020 Colby College Mules
Location: Waterville, ME
Head Coach: Adam Reeb (2nd year)
Assistant Coach: Mike Napoli (2nd year)
Twitter: @ColbyTennis; #mulesmakingmoves. Decent for score updates, has PlaySight to live stream home matches which is cool
ITA National Ranking: NR
Blog Power Ranking: NR
Power 6 UTR: 66
2018-2019 Year in Review: A 5-4 loss to Hamilton in the first conference match of the year put a damper on the 2019 spring season. While Colby pushed Amherst to 5-4, they lost 8-1 to Bates and Tufts – the two teams the Mules are perennially chasing to move up in the NESCAC
Key Additions: Jan Philip Wenger (UTR: 11.75, Switzerland), Ben Powis (3-Star, UTR: 9.94(P), Gerard Lopez (2-Star, UTR: 9.57), Josh Fleishman (2-Star, UTR: 9.34)
Key Losses: None
Lineup Analysis
1) Scott Altmeyer, senior, UTR=12.03, range: #1-1. Scotty Altz. Altmeyer will play #1 for Colby for the third year in a row, and the senior will certainly be looking to finish his career on a high note. Last year Scott had a fantastic fall season, but his level dropped a tad in the spring. While Scott still had good wins over Leach (GFU), Le Duff (Cruz) and Ma (Amherst), he took tight losses to Zimmerman (Hamilton), Aizenberg (Brandeis), Shanker (Caltech), Quijano (Bates), Urken (Bowdoin) and Sorkin (Tufts). Scott had another fantastic fall this year. He beat Sorkin (Tufts) and Forester (Bates) at Midd before defaulting due to illness. He also defended his A-flight title at the Wallach; beating Sharda (Tufts), Kupferman (Bates), Yang (Bowdoin) and Gorelick (Tufts). A 3 set loss to Wang (Bowdoin) at ITAs was disappointing, but I’m not too worried about it. We’ll see him @ individuals in May.
2) Jan Wenger, freshman, UTR=11.75, range: #2-3. This is a HUGE development for Colby. The freshman from Switzerland almost pulled off a massive upset at ITAs when he took Aizenberg to 7-6 in the third; ultimately falling just short against the Brandeis senior. Despite the final result, Coach Reeb has to be thrilled that Wenger was able to match the level of one of the best players in the region. Wenger also picked up a solid win against SCS (RPI) at Middlebury and played Fortier (Bowdoin) close at the Wallach. Wenger is quick and solid off of both wings and will grind you down from the baseline. He’s already proved he’ll be a tough out and I’m excited to see his performance this spring.
3) Max Schuermann, sophomore, UTR=10.89, range #3-4. Schuermann had a solid start to his college career last year at #3. Wins over Eisenberg (Bates) and Turchetta (Amherst) were the highlights, and he also pushed Yang (Bowdoin) to three sets. Shuermann loves to hang on the baseline and take massive cuts at the ball, which should be a good fit on Colby’s slowwwwwwww indoors courts. This fall, Max beat Yohannes (RPI) at Midd and picked up a great win over Pentousis (Tufts) at the Wallach. He’s a solid player, but he’ll be an underdog against most NESCAC teams at #3. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him moved down to #4 at some point this spring.
4) Sumukh Pathi, junior, UTR=10.83, range: #3-4. Pathi has dealt with some injuries his first two years at Colby, but has played #2 when healthy. The junior was abroad this fall, and will hopefully come back for an injury-free spring season. He was a bit overmatched at #2 last year, losing to all the ranked teams Colby played, but I see him having a lot of success at #4. He has great touch and finishes well at the net and will definitely factor into Colby’s doubles plans as well.
5) Garrett Reiter, junior, UTR=10.55, range #5-7. Reiter was also abroad this fall, but should return to a starting spot in the spring for the third year in a row. Garrett played #4 last year after playing #3 as a freshman but didn’t improve his results as much as I’m sure he would have liked. A win over Gonzalgo (Caltech) was the highlight, but going 0-3 against Hamilton, Bates and Tufts isn’t going to get the job done. It’s always tough to predict how players will return after spending a semester abroad, but Reiter should feel more confident at #5 and he offers some stability and experience to the bottom of Colby’s lineup for the first time in a few years.
6) Ben Powis, freshman, UTR=9.94, range: #5-7. Powis was the highest-ranked recruit for Colby this year, but he didn’t play many matches his senior year of high school or the summer before starting at Colby. This fall he took close losses to Kania (Bates) at Middlebury and Tegtmeier (Brandeis) at the Wallach. Not a whole lot to go off of here but given Colby’s struggles at the bottom of the lineup over the past few seasons, I think the freshman will get the first crack at the #6 spot.
In the Hunt / Doubles: Jonathan Hallal (UTR=10.02), Gerard Lopez (UTR=9.56), Luis Gonzalez Kompalic (UTR=8.63). Hallal is a senior who made a little run in the C flight at Middlebury, beating Ha (Skidmore) and Tegtmeier (Brandeis). Out of the three, I think he’s the most likely to jump into the starting lineup and could even play up to #5 depending on how Reiter performs. Lopez is a freshman who won a round in the D flight at the Wallach before losing to eventual D Flight champ Sergiu Celebidachi (Skidmore). Kompalic won’t be in the singles lineup, but the senior from Rio de Janeiro could be a factor in the doubles lineup. Speaking of doubles – Altmeyer and Pathi have played together the last two years and have been a solid team in the Northeast Region – spending most of their time ranked around #10-15 in the region. With Pathi abroad this fall, Altmeyer and Wenger partnered together and beat Imrire/SCS (RPI) and Wynne/Williamson (Skidmore) at Midd. Wynne and Williamson won a round at NCAAs last year, so that’s an impressive win for a team playing their first matches together. However, they did fall in the first round at ITAs to Bates and to Tufts at the Wallach. Pathi is a strong doubles player, and I think he’ll be playing #2, potentially with Powis. Schuermann and Reiter prefer to hang back from the baseline, so that could be an interesting combo at #3, but Kompalic could slot in there as well. I’m really just spitballing tho, Coach Reeb’s got a couple months to figure it out
Schedule Analysis
An interesting schedule for Colby this year. At first glance, I didn’t like it, but there are a few opportunities for the Mules to get back in the national rankings. Colby starts off their spring season with a quick trip down to the Boston area where they’ll play MIT and Babson. Shame on me, but I didn’t realize MIT finished last year #23 in the country. With MIT graduating Cauneac, Barr and Ko, these teams are evenly matched (Power 6s of 66 and 67) so this one should be competitive. Babson is a bit of an unknown but they brought in a few nice recruits and apparently the #2/#3 player for Boston College last year decided to transfer to Babson, so they should be much improved. My guess is Colby goes 1-1 this weekend. After a couple easy matches at home, the Mules head to Orlando for spring break matches against Whitewater, LUTHER, Centre and Calvin. Colby should roll Luther, Centre and Calvin, and will be favored against Whitewater. Anything less than 4-0 on spring break would be disappointing.
Returning home, Colby has their typical NESCAC slate which consists of Bates, Trinity, Hamilton, Tufts, Bowdoin, Wesleyan, Amherst and Conn. The match circled on the calendar has to be the Bates match. Colby has felt like they’ve had a shot against Bates the past few years but hasn’t really been competitive with the Bobcats since their 6-3 win in 2014. We’ll see if this year is any different. Colby should beat Trinity, Hamilton and Conn and will be heavy underdogs against Bowdoin, Wesleyan and Amherst. The match against Tufts should be a little closer than the other 3, but I’d be shocked if Colby pulled that upset.
All in all, Colby has added two nice players and should be better than last year, but there are still a lot of question marks. The singles lineup is more solid than in previous years, but doubles is still up in the air and we haven’t seen great doubles from the Mules over the last few years. NESCACs has been expanded to eight teams this year, and Colby shouldn’t have any trouble making the postseason for the first time in recent memory (ever?), but I haven’t seen anything that makes me think they’ll do any more than earn the 7 or 8 seed and bow out to Midd/Amherst/Bowdoin in the first round.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and all that jazz! Spend some time with your family and loved ones this holiday season – imma go brave the stores for some last minute shopping, see you in the new year!
Thank you. Happy Holidays.