Author: Emily Phillips
After suffering losses to three top-15 nationally ranked teams, men’s tennis is back in stride, heading into the second half of conference play with a three-game winning streak for a 8-6 overall record.
The last time the black and orange faced Glendale Community College was at their season-opening 8-1 victory match. On March 30, however, the Tigers were missing two of their top six players, which made the match a bit more competitive. While co-captains Chris Wan (senior) and Victor Sowers (senior) lost a tough doubles match at the number one spot, Tyler Morgan (sophomore) and Spencer Choy (first-year), as well as Rod Bandeira (first-year) and Ben Gilmore (sophomore) won their doubles matches in the number two and three spots.
In his singles match, Wan came back from a set down to bring home a tremendous tiebreaker victory in the number one spot. Sowers also won his singles match, and with a 4-1 lead, the Tigers never looked back. Choy and Morgan went on to win their singles matches as well.
“The kudos have to go to the overall performance of Morgan, who was really impressive as he rotated into the starting line-up and came up huge for us with two wins,” Sowers said in an e-mail interview. The Tigers came home with a 6-3 victory over the Vaqueros.
Earlier in the week, men’s tennis overcame a slow start in doubles to Pacific Lutheran University of Washington state to win its closest match of the season so far. Wan and Sowers were the only doubles pair to win their match, and the Tigers went into the singles matches needing to win at least four out of six to come out on top. With victories from Sowers, Choy and Stephen Perkins (first-year), as well as a tremendous nail-biting performance in a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 match by Gilmore, the Tigers clinched the win. However, Josh Capelle (junior) said the Tigers are much better competitors than they showed in the match. “Even though we won 5-4, it should have been a rout,” he said.
After playing nine straight non-conference matches, the Tigers are ready to get back into Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) play. “We’ve learned that we need to keep working hard and improve,” Perkins said. “We are capable of winning the tight matches.”The team has yet to lose to an opponent that is not nationally ranked in the top 20 for Division III, which is a substantial accomplishment considering that SCIAC has four teams that are in the top 10 nationally.
The Tigers have set their sights high, hoping to finish the season within the top four in SCIAC. “In order to close out the year successfully, we need to keep getting production from the bottom of our singles line-up – which has been solid all year, especially the two first-years at number five and six – and maintain consistency in the doubles,” Sowers said. “We have a couple matches coming up where it will be next to impossible to come back from a slow start in doubles.”
The Tigers hold a 1-3 SCIAC record heading into Saturday’s match versus the number six nationally ranked California Lutheran Kingsmen.
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