Weekend Recap

First, I'll start off with the SCIAC tournament. Things really went as expected here. The one surprising result was a 5-4 win for Redlands against Cal Lu in the semis. Redlands seems as though they peaked at the wrong time this season. Their NCAA outlook looks grim. A pretty good season for both Cal Lu and Pomona-Pitzer. Both were strong teams who gave some national contenders a tough time. Look for both of those programs to improve over the next few years, especially P-P. CMS really took care of business in the finals and they look great going into their match with Santa Cruz. You have to like the Stags right now even though the match is on the Slugs homecourt. Definitely looking forward to that one in only a few weeks.

Three pretty important NESCAC matches took place this weekend, with Amherst and Williams asserting their dominance over the #4 and #5 NESCAC teams. It seems as though there is a clear divide between the top 3 and Bowdoin/Trinity (CT) this year. Bowdoin had a disappointing weekend, really getting crushed by Amherst. I'm really questioning Bowdoin right now. Sullivan hasn't been leading this team and they have been struggling. Williams and Amherst both look great and Trinity (CT) needs a win against Williams on Wednesday to make a splash in Pool C.

Another quick note is that Gustavus had a dominant win on the road against Kalamazoo. The Gusties have put themselves in a position to host an NCAA regional once again and unless some unforeseen circumstances occur, they should find themselves in the Elite 8 again.

The results of the weekend were from the UAA Championships. Both semifinals were pretty routine victories as expected, but there were two pretty big surprises in the championship and 3rd-4th matches. To start, I expected a real war between CMU and Chicago. CMU won 2 doubles and 3 easy singles matches to take this one very routinely over a Chicago team who needs to go back to the drawing board for next season. They are loaded with talent, but they haven't put all the pieces together yet. CMU ended well and they have to think their doubles really improved this season. This is a good win to bolster their NCAA resume. The upset of the year in my opinion occurred in the Championship match. Emory seemed pretty much unbeatable the whole year and even their 5-4 victories weren't really "close." Wash U came out and swept the doubles which really was a knockout blow because we knew Watts was an automatic at 1. A great fight by Emory to almost come back but the hole from doubles was just too big. Wash U is the new #1 team in the country heading into NCAAs.