Monday, Sept 5 Match Day!

Update: Caltech with the sweep. Their site, as is becoming more common, was charging for the video and stats.

Random Thoughts: The rare Monday match is presented by Caltech tonight. Going to be a late one, too. I would, at this point, make fun of Caltech for making me work one match late tonight but the entire team is smarter than me. Who knows what sinister things they could do to the site if they felt motivated. Who knows what medical advances that would help me they could hide until my demise. No, I love Caltech! I only wish the match was later!

I normally don’t talk about non-DIII matches but this is all we got tonight.

I will focus on some Caltech history. Did you know they had never won a SCIAC match until 2019? That year they won 4 and had 10 wins overall for the first time in 20-years. Last season they went 6-10 in the SCIAC and had 11 wins overall. The program was honestly at a place prior to 2019 where teams would just use their bench to play them from the start. That has now changed so kudos to Coach Tom Gardner.

I think Tom is one coach I sort of tiptoe around. Every time I reach out I think he feels I’m going to be negative towards his team. Instead, I can understand their unique academic situation there and how hard it is to recruit quality players. Somehow Tom has figured it out. I’m just impressed.

Okay, now to be negative. Can we fix your stats page? I don’t see a link and I fear you’re going to go with a text format. You’ve got the brain trust to be better so let’s get on this.

One last thing that I’ve mentioned before. Caltech has definitely gone with a non-DIII concept when it comes to scheduling. Their only DIII matches will be in conference this season. They could definitely play in the PCC but they elect not to do it. It seems to be working for them so no reason to change.