Cerritos College men’s tennis suffered a loss to Santa Barbara Community College Tuesday at home.
Santa Barbara was able to win five of the six singles tennis matches at Tuesday’s game, while Cerritos won only one singles match.
A match that was won by Cerritos’ Chris Nguy, who delivered SBCC’s Miles Seemann his first loss of the season with a score of 6-4 in the first set, 6-4 during the second set, and Nguy sealing his victory with 10-3 in the third set.
Men’s and women’s head coach at Cerritos College Alvin Kim said, “It was a really big win for Chris to beat Seemann, whose number one for a very good team. We’ve been trying to fight for seating’s individually for the regional tournaments coming up and so that really helps him.”
Nguys teammate Kyle Porter did not fare so well with a 6-0 and a 6-1 loss against SBCCs Joshua Crispe-Jones.
Porter said that his opponent, “is a really skilled player; he showed me that I have a lot to work on. It’s just good practice playing a good player like that for the future matches that I’m going to have.”
Porter added that his return serve needed more work.
Todd Jenkins was able to win the second set of the match for the Falcons but was not able to secure his victory in the third set with scores of 6-1, 6-4, and 11-9.
Jenkins talked about what he does before the match.
“I came in with a strong mental game. There’s nothing you can really do until you actually face your opponent.
“You prepare the best you can, warm up your strokes, and everything needed, hydrate, just do all that before and then hope for the best,” he said.
He explained his match against SBCCs Troy Akin, “I struggled the first set, I only got one game in the first set, and then the next set I really picked up my game and pulled it together and after that first set it was an entirely close match.”
Jenkins feels that he should work on of his major issue, like his footwork and how he approaches the ball and serving.
Kim said Santa Barbara has a really good team this year and is definitely one of the top ten teams in the state.
He thinks that the Cerritos’ tennis team is doing better.
“I think as a team we are doing better especially towards the end of the season, we’ve been working a lot harder. It’s not something that our team’s been doing poorly I think that the depth of men’s tennis this year is really deep.”
According to Kim, some of the top colleges that the men’s tennis team has faced this season are Mt. San Jacinto College and Ventura College.
It’s no surprise that these colleges are a challenge since Mt. San Jacinto is currently number two in Southern California and Ventura College comes in at number three.
The loss brings Cerritos men’s tennis record to 11-9 for the season.
The South Coast Conference Tournament will be hosted at Cerritos all day on Thursday and Friday.