Match Preview: #12 Mary Washington vs. #14 Carnegie Mellon (April 4)

Two very evenly matched teams with a lot on the line in this Atlantic South clash. Carnegie Mellon just found out that they are sitting at the #8 At-Large spot, so they need to do some work to get back into the tournament. Mary Washington just lost its first conference match in 8 years to a lesser Salisbury team. You can bet that both teams really want this one. I like Mary Washington to start out strong in doubles with the home court advantage. Look for wins at 1 and 2 doubles for the Eagles. Singles will make things interesting. James should take care of business at #1, but Loden has been very streaky of late. If he can win as well, that could give the Eagles a 4-1 lead and put them in the driver's seat. But Carnegie Mellon has the upper hand at 3, 4 and 5 singles with their outstanding depth. The Mary Wash guys in those spots really need to play at a high level to compete. I think #6 singles could decide the outcome of this match, but I would expect Mary Wash to pull out the win.

Probable Starters:
1. #18 Loden/Murata (UMW) vs. Muliawan/Mactaggart (CM)
2. Goff/Parrish (UMW) vs. Raghavan/Clearfield (CM)
3. James/Dunn (UMW) vs. Nemerov/Spero (CM)

1. #18 John James (UMW) vs. Andrew Clearfield (CM)
2. #27 Randy Loden (UMW) vs. #36 Alex Nemerov (CM)
3. Jason Dunn (UMW) vs. #28 James Muliawan (CM)
4. Eddie Carver (UMW) vs. Jon Spero (CM)
5. Evan Goff (UMW) vs. Ravi Raghavan (CM)
6. Bryce Parrish (UMW) vs. Bobby Mactaggart (CM)