Tuesday, March 24, 2009

#8 Gustavus Adolphus at #5 UC Santa Cruz Match Preview

1. Paukert/Tomasek vs. Kamel/Vartabedian
2. Burdakin/Koppel vs. Gendelman/Liberty-Point
3. Clark/Hansen vs. Mark-Griffin/Ortiz

1. Charlie Paukert vs. Max Liberty-Point
2. Mike Burdakin vs. Jared Kamel
3. Ben Tomasek vs. Max Ortiz
4. Patrick Clark vs. Ilya Gendelman
5. Nick Hansen vs. Colin Mark-Griffin
6. Ryan Hallsten vs. Marc Vartabedian

Kauss didn't play today against Williams so I'm assuming he won't be magically recovered from whatever ailment he has soon enough to play in this match. That being said, without him, Gustavus doesn't stand a chance in this match. The match has moved outdoors which swings the advantage massively in Cruz's favor and GAC is without their star player who could give them 2 points in this match and move everyone down a spot on a not very deep GAC team. I would expect Gustavus to keep themselves in it with 1 doubles win, but after that it should be all Cruz. I am going to predict a singles sweep for Santa Cruz on their way to an 8-1 win. The only spots GAC could potentially win are 1, 2 and 3. After that they are just overmatched. Even if they manage to steal a singles match or two, it won't be enough to beat UCSC.