Author: Leanne Zabala
There is a strong consensus among the Men’s Tennis team that their first few conference games have not been their best. After a back-to-back loss against the University of Redlands and then Pomona-Pitzer, Men’s Tennis jumped into the mindset of stepping it up.
“I think the odds were stacked against us during our game against Pomona-Pitzer,” Jamal Fahim (junior) said. “We had already faced a tough match against Redlands the previous day where some of us injured ourselves. Pomona is a tough team but given the right circumstances, I have no doubt that our team can beat them. It’s just a matter of getting a solid lineup together and having consistency in terms of our doubles teams.”
Other players feel the same way in that they are doing very well in singles play, but definitely need to step it up in doubles. After ending last season with an injury, Chris Wan (junior) proved that he is still playing strong even in singles, making the only win of the Oxy vs. Pamona matchup that took place back on February 21.
“It definitely feels nice to get back out on the court and play matches after not playing last year,” Wan said. “I had rotator cuff tendinitis in my right shoulder that has pretty much completely recovered. As long as I warm up right I can play at 100%. It was a rough match against Pitzer last Saturday. Our biggest weakness was definitely our doubles. None of our teams could get going which gave Pitzer all the momentum going into singles.”
Pomona-Pitzer may be the eighth best team in the west while Occidental is ranked 12, but our Men’s Tennis team recognize exactly what they need to work on in order to beat tough teams in future matches.
“As I see it, our greatest strength as a team is that we are very deep, everyone is more or less within the same skill level so it is nice to know that our #6 is almost as good as our #1…” Tyler Morgan (first-year) said. “That being said, it is also one of our weaknesses in that we don’t really have a star player, or that one senior that inspires the rest of the team with his great play. Also, as an unrelated weakness, we need to work on our conditioning.”
While the players appear to realize where their shorticomings may lie, second-year coach Alberto Martin is looking to address other daunting issues that have plagued the team in past years.
“As a second-year coach I feel like I’m learning the proccess and how things work in division III,” Coach Martin said. “Another aspect of Division III is that you need a deeper team as academics do not allow players to be at all the matches. When I played in Division I, we had 6 guys on a scholarship and players were required to be at matches and practice 100% of the time. Here we need to have around 12 really solid players to compete in our tough division.”
Luckily, it is still early in the season and the team still has a chance at placing high in SCIAC tournament. Coach Martin believes that their losses against Redlands, Pitzer, and Whittier have refocused the team, making them take practice more seriously. They are working to get their doubles teams solid and are conditioning heavily.
“I feel that when we have our full team and as the season progresses, we will become more competitive,” Coach Alberto Martin said. “I think some of the current players are close to making quantum leaps in their games as they learn to incorporate some of the techniques we have been working on in a match situation.”
The team will look to begin the process of turning their season around as they face off against Colorado College March 17 and Amherst University March 19.
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