The Cal men’s tennis team compiled a season full of what-ifs and could-have-beens.
What if the Bears hadn’t lost senior co-captain Riki McLachlan at the beginning of the year to a nearly season-ending knee injury?
What if they weren’t forced to produce three different doubles tandems to make up for McLachlan’s absence on the top doubles court?
Could the No. 17 Bears have finished the season within the nation’s top 10 and made a much longer run at the NCAA team championships?
But rather than continue their season overshadowed by the many what-ifs, the Bears (16-10) rolled with their injury-plagued start to the year and produced a season that ended similarly to their previous one — with a round-of-16 loss to second-seeded Virginia at the NCAAs.
At the beginning of the season, Cal coach Peter Wright, along with several players on the Cal team, claimed that the Bears had a surefire shot at a top-10 NCAA finish.
If their performance at the start of the year was any indication of how their season would turn out, their top-10 goal did not seem too lofty or far off.
Cal began its regular dual match season with three straight wins, including a 4-3 come-from-behind victory over No. 20 Michigan during the ITA Kick-Off Weekend in January.
But in just their fourth dual match of the year, the Bears were swept by No. 5 USC — victors of the NCAAs in four of the last five years — after McLachlan was injured during the doubles round. Prior to McLachlan’s injury, Riki McLachlan and his younger brother, Ben, competed on the top court in doubles, forming the No. 7 doubles pair in the nation.
The Bears subsequently lost to No. 2 UCLA the next day, 6-1, after the team had to reorganize its doubles pairings and singles lineup to make up for McLachlan’s absence.
“(Losing Riki) put all of us under a little more stress,” Wright said. “It put a little additional responsibility on all of the guys. They had to live with it day in and day out, so it was tough losing Riki.”
But from Cal’s restructuring of its doubles duos, the Bears formed two ranked doubles pairs, led by senior co-captain Christoffer Konigsfeldt and junior Campbell Johnson on the top court. Cal’s deep doubles lineup, which proved to be one of the Cal’s greatest weapons throughout the season, led the Bears to amass 13 doubles point victories out of their last 16 dual matches.
Last year, the Bears maintained a relatively consistent season, topping all their opponents who ended their season with lower national rankings but failing to conquer top-10 teams to move up the ranks.
However, this year, Cal showed spurts of top-10 potential, starting with a 4-1 win over then-No. 11 Florida at the ITA National Team Indoor Championships in February. The Bears later downed then-No. 4 Duke in a monumental 4-3 upset for their first defeat over a top-10 team three weeks later in March.
This year, Cal took down their Bay area rivals Stanford in a season sweep for the first time in six years.
Although the Bears did not host the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament, they traveled to Gainesville, Fla., and conquered both Florida State and Denver in 4-1 wins to secure their spot in the Sweet 16 for the third year in a row.
After losing a key player to start off the season, the Bears garnered several brief successes but ultimately finished the year similar to their 2012 season. The Cal team ended its postseason with a 4-0 loss to the Cavaliers — this year’s NCAA championship winners.
“If you look at the teams in the country who’ve reached the final 16 in the last three years, it’s only been five programs,” Wright said. “With all the challenges we’ve had this year, I’m incredibly proud of how the guys came together as a team and fought each match.”
Janice Chua covers men’s tennis. Contact her at [email protected].