Whaddup readers. Today we’re jetting out to the Pacific Northwest aka the Land of Carmelo Anthony to take a moderately deep dive into the Northwest Conference with the exception of Whitman, who will be getting their own preview at some point. I think? I’ve spent the last two years predicting Whitman’s downfall, only to watch the Blues cruise their way to their 12th and 13th straight NWC titles. Whitman is the frontrunner again this year, but they aren’t the only team in the conference. We’ll touch on all the teams in the conference, with a spotlight on George Fox, Pacific and Lewis & Clark.
George Fox
Location: Newberg, OR
Head Coach: Jeff Cero (1st Year)
Twitter: @GFUTennis – not super active during matches
2019 ITA National Ranking: 28
2019 ITA Regional Ranking: 8
2019 Blog Power Ranking: 31
Power 6 UTR: 64
2018-2019 Year in Review: During Coach Neal Ninteman’s last season at the helm, the Bruins reached their highest national ranking ever, peaking at #27. Wins against UCSC, Occidental, Colby, Whittier, Pacific and L&C were solid but not spectacular. A 7-2 loss to Tufts and an 8-1 loss to Caltech were surprising, and 8-1 and 6-0 losses to Whitman were certainly not the way the Bruins wanted to send Coach Ninteman out.
Key Additions: Jacob Bear (2-star, UTR=9.78), Camden Camacho (Guam, UTR=9.15)
Key Losses: Keaten Baker (#3 singles, #1 doubles), Payton Namba (#6 singles, #3 doubles)
Team Overview: Losing Baker and Namba hurts, as I don’t think either Bear or Camacho will start as first years. The Bruins have quite the 1-2 punch in Will Leach and Luke Lemaitre, and when these two are on, they’ve shown they can play with just about anyone in the country (wins over Cuba and Farrell last year). Leach balled this fall winning the Northwest ITA for the second year in a row and going 1-2 at the ITA Cup, beating Angrandi (Salisbury) and losing to Zalenski (Kenyon) and Esses (Emory). Lemaitre had a solid fall as well, making the semis of the Northwest ITA before losing to Kirsh (Whitman) in 3. Things get a little uncertain after Leach and Lemaitre, but it looks like Rox Rogers has taken a step forward after getting a lot of matches in this summer, and I think he’ll be playing #3. Rogers made the quarters of the Northwest ITA and also picked up a win over Sean Murphy (Pacific) at the PNW Invitational. After Rogers I think the lineup goes Alex Namba, Pete Gibson and Thierry Van Os, with Jacob Bear looking for a shot at the #6 spot. As for doubles, Leach/Namba lost an absolute battle to Whitman 16-14 in the third set breaker in the finals at ITAs, but Coach Cero should be feeling pretty good about them against anyone in the region. Lemaitre will be somewhere in there – he played with Gibson at ITAs. And Van Os / Camacho played together at ITAs, making the quarterfinals. As usual, predicting doubles is crapshoot, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a new face in the lineup.
Schedule Overview / W2W4: As usual, George Fox starts their season with a few DI teams (Portland State, Montana, Idaho) before playing a few conference matches. As they did last year, the Bruins will be spending Spring Break in Claremont, but this year they will be playing the Stag Hen! The team should definitely be hyped about getting the opportunity to play the tournament, where they’ll be the #6 seed and play Amherst in the first round. Assuming chalk results, the Bruins will then get a shot at Southwestern and then either Babson or Tufts/Pomona (depending on who wins that first round matchup). Playing Babson doesn’t really benefit the Bruins, so the match against Southwestern will be huge. Not only to solidify their national ranking, but it will also give them a shot at Tufts or Pomona in a low-risk, high-reward situation. Matches against Middlebury, Caltech and a few JuCos wrap up the trip. George Fox won’t push Midd, but there’s an opportunity for Leach and Lemaitre to pick up a big win for individuals. The Caltech match will be closer, but I think Caltech has too much singles depth. The Bruins would likely need a doubles sweep, a win from Lemaitre and try to squeak out a point somewhere else.
Returning home, George Fox plays their usual conference schedule and UCSC. Obviously the match circled on their calendar is @Whitman on April 10. Though they lost 8-1 and 6-0 to Whitman last year, Whitman pulled out a couple doubles breakers in the NWC Finals and won at #1-2 in the regular season. Leach will be the favorite against Kirsh this time around, and Whitman didn’t have the strongest showing at ITAs. Whitman is still the odds-on favorite to win the conference, but George Fox should challenge for the title, and certainly won’t finish any lower than #2 in the conference. Damn that was longer than I thought it would be. Oh well, commence the wall of text. On to Pacific.
Pacific
Location: Forest Grove, OR
Head Coach: Pete Yellico (3rd year)
Twitter: @BoxerTennis – lots of off-court content and good score updates
2019 ITA National Ranking: NR
2019 ITA Regional Ranking: 13
2019 Blog Power Ranking: NR
Power 6 UTR: 60
2018-2019 Year in Review: Pacific beat UCSC, Chapman, Linfield and Lewis & Clark on the way to earning the #3 seed at the NWC Championships. They almost pulled a massive upset early in the season, pushing Whitman to a 5-4 decision after going up 2-1 after dubs. Losses to Colby, Occidental, Redlands and George Fox showed that Pacific is a team hovering in the ~#50 range in the country.
Key Additions: Jeffery Kubota (2-star, UTR=9.05), Rush Williams (2-star, UTR=9.09) – not on roster.
Key Losses: Griffin Fraser #lockerroomguys
Team Overview: Whelp, Pacific has already started their season, so that should help me with this section. Pacific started their season in Hawaii with CMS, Caltech and Trinity (TX). As expected, Pacific went 0-3 on this trip, but took points in each match, losing 8-1 to CMS, 7-2 to Caltech and 6-3 to Trinity (TX). Hey, we’ll take improvement! Full disclosure – it doesn’t look like any of these teams played their full lineups (maybe Trinity?), but there were some encouraging fights throughout the singles lineup, and the Boxers took 2 doubles matches against Caltech and one against Trinity (TX). It looks like #1 doubles may be a stack, but so what. Pacific’s #1-5 was held consistent throughout the trip: Reyn Miyagawa, Rayden Murata, Sean Murphy, Joey Hu/Quentin Gonzalez with Koby Murata, Garret Katayama and Cooper Rich all getting shots at #6. Quentin Gonzalez was the highlight for the Boxers, as he beat Michael Hao (CMS) at #5 and Jace Akagi-Okuma (Trinity TX) after getting moved up to #4. The win over Akagi-Okuma was particularly impressive. Good stuff Quentin. Miyagawa made the semis at ITAs this fall and I thought he could be a dark horse to qualify for nationals, but an 0-3 Hawaii trip has probably taken him out of the race. Nothing to dwell on, I could see Miyagawa taking a similar trajectory to Clark Winniger a few years ago and making a run at Nationals his senior year.
Schedule Overview / W2W4: Glad I decided to write this article today, because Pacific has a big non-conference match against L&C on Saturday. Pacific took care of L&C last year, but the Pios added some much-needed depth this year and I think they’ll be a little stronger. I still expect Pacific to win 6-3, but could see L&C pushing Pacific to 5-4. The rest of the schedule is pretty straightforward: conference foes and visits from Concordia TX and UCSC. Pacific lost 9-0 to George Fox last year, and while I don’t think they will scare the Bruins, I could see them scoring a doubles point, and 1, maybe 2 singles points, but this one won’t be closer than 6-3. Pacific will be the #3 seed at the NWC Championships and will likely bow out to George Fox in a repeat of last year.
Lewis & Clark
Location: Portland, OR
Twitter: @LCPiosTEN – hella content this fall. YOU LIKE THAT!!
Head Coach: Jimmy Chau (2nd year)
2019 ITA National Ranking: NR
2019 ITA Regional Ranking: 14
2019 Blog Power Ranking: NR
Power 6 UTR: 58
2018-2019 Year in Review: Coach Chau inherited a team with 6 dudes and kept them relevant in the NWC – making the tournament as the #4 seed. If my memory serves correctly, I had L&C losing to Linfield, but the Pios proved me incorrect, beating Linfield twice. They pushed Pacific in a 6-3 loss that easily could have been 5-4. Those were their relevant matches.
Key Additions: Shane Lynette (2-star, UTR=10.13), Kristian Peev (2-star, UTR=9.21), Alberto Santos (NR, UTR=8.04)
Key Losses: Raed Attia (#1 singles, #1 doubles, ouch)
Team Overview: Right off the bat, losing Raed Attia is a huge blow as he had a UTR north of 11. Lewis & Clark will have a bit more depth this year, however, and Ramez Attia should be able to play .500 tennis at the top spot. First year Shane Lynette should have an immediate impact at the top of the lineup as well. After these two, I’m going to guess that #3-6 will be Brendan Adams, Kristian Peev, Riley Vickers and Will McDermott, with senior Ryan Hayes playing a number of matches at #6.
Schedule Overview / W2W4: The highlights of Pacific’s schedule include matches at Occidental and Whittier and their conference schedule. I like the schedule put together by Coach Chau. L&C will be underdogs against both Oxy and Whittier, but both matches will be good, early-season tests for the team before they try to knock off Pacific and defend the #4 spot in the conference against Linfield.
The Rest of the NWC
Linfield: Linfield’s fearless leader Ben Belletto has a strong twitter game. He’s also brought in former #1 Nathan Saragoza as an assistant this year. Unfortunately, Linfield didn’t bring any players in to replace Saragoza, who was a solid #1 last year. Luis Rojas is the top dog on this team and will win some matches, I’m interested to see how he fairs against Pacific and L&C. Linfield is taking a Spring Break trip to Claremont where Whittier will be the match to watch. I think last year was their year to take out L&C for the 4th spot in the conference.
Whitworth: Whitworth finished 6-12 last year, going 3-5 in conference. Senior twins Ben and Jake Bethards will anchor a team that eeked out a 5-4 win over Willamette last year. First year Ethan Violette should contribute right away, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them beat Linfield.
Pacific Lutheran: PLU went 5-11 last year and 2-6 in conference. Their mascot is the Lutes and their teams volunteered at the Tacoma Rescue Mission in October. Who doesn’t love volunteer work. Sophomore Michael Campbell is a nice player who pushed some solid #1s last year. He’ll be a solid regional player for the next few years
Willamette: Willamette went 1-14 last year and 1-7 in conference. The Bearcats like close matches. Last year they went 5-4 with Pacific Lutheran, Puget Sound and Whitworth going 1-2 on those contests. Sophomore Andrew Kabacy is another solid player who pushed Reyn Miyagawa last year, and had close matches with Rayden Murata and Shane Lynette at ITAs this fall.
Puget Sound: The Loggers went winless last year, which means there’s room for improvement this year! With three new additions, Puget Sound will look to reverse a 5-4 loss to Willamette.
Did anyone make it this far? lmk. And if you did, toss me a follow on Twitter, my follower count is lacking. Until next week!