Weekend Thoughts Feb 12-14

A few observations and then Wash U-Chicago thoughts...

-Redlands had two matches. Reading and Hammond were both nowhere to be found. They had a lot of new guys in their lineup so I was surprised by this.

-Trinity (TX) took my advice and picked up their singles play a little bit. They lost 5-4 to the #1 JuCo school, which I feel is a very strong result for the Tigers and good to see for them going forward.

-Christopher Newport is a team to watch this year after seeing their lineup this weekend. Heyer at #4 singles is very tough and they could actually pose a threat to NC Wesleyan in the USA South.

-CMU had a good win over a ranked D2 team sweeping doubles which is promising for them going into this weekend.

-CMS was excellent at the top of the lineup against the #5 D2 school. I was very impressed by Erani and Lim. A great start to the year for those two.

-Whitman barely snuck by Pacific Lutheran. Take nothing away from PLU, but I expected a bit more from Whitman. After this match, I'm actually less impressed with Santa Cruz, because PLU was also able to take 2 of the doubles from Whitman, actually in more dominating fashion than Cruz.

I was shocked at Wash U's result with Case Western on Saturday. It was actually a pretty close 8-1. I thought the Bears may have just underestimated them and weren't ready to play, getting out some early season jitters. I was on target with the doubles results in the Wash U-Chicago match, but the singles was a shocker. This was an extremely close 5-4 which Wash U could have easily lost. I thought Woods could be the best 4 in the country but he lost, and Levy certainly is not back to his old form. If the Bears don't raise their level, they will lose to Hopkins. I can understand Putterman losing, but Chicago's 3 was also a freshman so that has to be alarming for the Bears as well. The other possibility is that I am really underestimating Chicago this year. They could be quite a bit stronger with 4 new guys in their starting lineup from last year including a new 2-3-4. My guess is they played very well and Wash U wasn't on top of their game. I'll be interested to see how the Bears respond because they barely got by on Sunday.