Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Sugar Creek v. Hurricanes

Sugar Creek travels to the 4.5 Hurricanes in this Thursday's most intriguing match.  It's a short drive up 59 for Ken Douds' crew, and hopefully he will get all of his stars to make the trip.  With Straley, Herr, Jim, Chiali, Cooney and some of the other veterans, he can field an imposing lineup. Finding the right combination will be a challenge.  I'm sure the Hurricanes will have most of their big guns there.  A loss to Sugar Creek will make things interesting...I wonder if the Deucebags are rooting for Freeman/Benzon's boys or so they still have their sights set on winning the division?

It's early, but my impression is that the other "teams to watch" (besides the three already mentioned) in 4.5 are the Crush, Black Sheep, and Ssshhhwings, with perhaps Copperfield and Jedi Knights also in the playoff mix.  None of those teams have particularly difficult matchups this week.

Likewise, in 4.0, the teams I have on my radar so far are Sienna, the Hurricanes, SAP, Rolido Boys, Chancellor's, the Smokers, Lakeside, Copperheads and Bear Creek.  Certainly other teams may emerge as the season progresses, but on paper all of these teams should breeze through this week as well.  

I'm curious to see how some of the newer roster additions play out this week.  David Herr has been mentioned.  Sienna's 4.5 team added a 19 yr. old superchamp in Andre Costilla.  I'm sure we will see more talent being added to some of the heavyweights as the season progresses.  


31 comments:

  1. Should start a fantasy HTA league and have a buy in that has a payout after city.

    I think it would be fun. Freeman, is it against the law to wager on recreational tennis?

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  2. Why is Red helping the 4.5 Hurricane team. Doesn't he have a life? He's 5.0 now.

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  3. NO...Red does not have a life.

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  4. If I remember correctly from the bar exam, I'm pretty sure it's against Texas law not to bet on league tennis.

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  5. great singles match against duecebags vs sienna. hasker vs trevino. bui or morales vs costilla. the duecebags have a doubles advantage.

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  6. I may require everyone who posts about the Sienna 4.5 team to add in parenthesis afterwards "(who hopes they don't go 0-9)" in this ridiculously tough division...I wish the HTA would've cut us a little bit of a break given over half the team is playing in 4.5 for the first year.

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  7. The problem with going 0-9 or having a bad record is that you'll be back in the bad division again next year. The HTA does a good job of spreading out the good teams but it is typically based on prior years results. So Sienna, you need to beat some folks this summer. The advantage you have is teams might take you lightly and play their scrubs. My guess is you'll pull out some nice 3-2 wins over the course of the season.

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  8. good or bad division, you just need to recruit early and strategically play your lineup. get some advice from freeman, cuz he's the best when it comes to recruiting.

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  9. Sienna may have a home court advantage, because a lot of people get lost driving out there.

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  10. I think there was lots of good gerrymandering going on for this summer to make sure one flight does not end up stacked and the other one weak.

    I think most of the predictions about city will be correct.

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  11. The divisions became skewed when Sugar Creek upgraded their roster. It would have been more balanced otherwise. Tough luck, but Sienna will still be no pushover.

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  12. Andre Costilla a Super 18 former Junior? Come on let's recruit young juniors to play adult league. Won't matter though we all know that JR's have no place in Adult League. He will be a Non Factor!!

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  13. I think Sienna can hold their own with anyone and they'll only get better throughout the season.

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  14. i played with and against costilla a year ago. he is definitely a solid player. he can hang with the top 4.5 league players in both singles and doubles. with trevino #1 and costilla #2 singles, all sienna has to do is to win one doubles line.

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  15. The problem is Sienna doesn't have a doubles line that can win for them.

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  16. I haven't heard much about Lakeside 4.0 this year. How does their team stack against the rest of powers?

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  17. They are lot older....

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  18. I don't believe they made the playoffs in years.

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  19. They are a longshot for the playoffs now, but Omel Ruiz looks like a good find at singles. They lost all three third set breakers to Chancellor's in week one, so talent-wise they're in the mix.

    GD

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  20. Lakeside was missing 4-5 top players against Chancellor's and Chancellors put out their best lineup and barely won. Lakeside is the most talented team in the division (doesn't matter how old they are) and they will be in playoffs with Smokers if they can get right people on the court. Chancellor's will lose to Smokers and Westside and Lakeside won't lose again and Smokers only loss will be to Lakeside. That puts Smokers and Lakeside in.

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  21. Based on the roster, can anyone validate Lakeside's claim that they were missing 4-5 strong players and ran their "B" team out there.

    If true, that would be impressive. But I suspect it is all hype. Lakeside's days are over.

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  22. Yes, Lakeside best days are over. Do they seriously believe they can make the playoffs. What year was it when they last made it to the playoffs (sounds like a Casey Kasem top 40 question).

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  23. Chancellor might have barely won the individual matches, but they won 4-1.

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  24. They made it in 2k6 and got edged out by Rice in the round robin matches.

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  25. Aside from Omel Riuz as the sleeper, is there anyone else that makes you wonder?

    Looking at their roster, I don't recognize many names. Of course, they may have the self-rates ready to go.

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  26. Last year they didn't have a club and they were in the playoffs in 2007 and basically every year before.

    There are only a few captains in all of Houston tennis that know what they are doing and the Lakeside guys are included in that group. They have been to several national senior events and summer league sectionals many times. I wouldn't underestimate them.

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  27. Bear Creek just got stronger by adding Bethual Gabriel.

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  28. Who are the new 4.5 players on the rosters and how should it effect early year predictions?

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  29. I love the poll, I would love weeknight tennis here or even a rotation from our fall season to include that here.

    I know Dallas has grown so much lately especially in 4.0 with 40 teams but weekend leagues + family + work= sucks.

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  30. Lakeside wont make the playoffs this year they will loose to the smokers 3-2. And chancellors didnt have their best line up when they played them and if they would have, it would of being 5-0.
    Nuf said

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  31. Chancellors did have their best singles players out there and the other players who weren't on the court (doubles guys) would not make Chancellors substantially better (although they are better players). I agree, Chancellors will be in the playoffs and Lakeside will miss out because of a poor showing in week 1. It will be a 4-5 team race for the 2 spots and there is no favorite in Division II.

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