Rankings 6-10

6. Middlebury The return of Conrad Olson makes the Panthers a real team. Without him, they are outside the top 10. They lose a great player who made it to the finals of individuals, but they are a young team that should be much improved for this coming year. What I don't like in this team is that they really don't have a "lock" in any position. They are all quite good players but are still beatable at their positions. However, they will be battle tested in the NESCAC and have shown that they always compete.
7. Amherst They lost a significant portion of last year's team but make up for that and some by bringing in the best recruiting class. They played an impressive schedule in the fall and beat two very good teams in Carnegie Mellon and Kenyon.They have what I believe to be one of the best 1-4 players in the country led by Lerner and Chafetz. The top teams will be able to beat this team at the 5/6 position and at 2 and 3 doubles. It will be interesting to see how the young players handle the pressure of playing so many good teams in their conference.
8. Mary Washington Amazing 1-2 punch in Loden and James. They are the heart and soul of their team. They lose a solid player in Carver and only gain 1 freshman. They will need to get better in doubles in order to beat the top teams but all their players play with heart and they seem to always find a win.
9. Williams- Certainly a down year for the Ephs after losing Greenberg and Simonette. They brought in some solid players but no one that will be able to fill those voids. This team is very deep but they no longer have the ability to beat teams at the 1-3 singles positions. Their achilles heel has always been doubles and this year is no different. If they can hang with the top teams in dubs they will find themselves beating some of the top 8 teams.
10. Bowdoin- Pretty tough call here for the 10 spot but there is a clear dropoff after the top 9 teams. They lose Gates but Sullivan got to the semis of individuals and should be a fine 1. The rest of the team is solid but nothing spectacular. Like some teams they have no clear weaknesses and this will make them a tough team to beat. Their big weakness is that this team is very hot and cold. They had an awful start to the spring last year but caught fire at the NESCAC tournament and only lost to Emory 5-3. Let's see which team shows up this year.