On Tuesday, March 5, Mt. SAC men’s tennis faced off against the San Diego City Knights with a chance to improve their overall record from 4-4.
Fresh off their in-conference win against the El Camino Warriors, SAC looked to start a winning streak to carry throughout March.
SAC gentlemen’s swept doubles matches and singles which was good enough to earn them a final tally of 7-2 on matches of the day and now sit at 5-4 overall and 4-0 in the Inland Empire Athletic Conference.
Mt. SAC sophomore Kaden Salvador and freshman Aiden Lopez faced off in a doubles match against the Knights’s sophomore Porter Niccum and freshman Jackson Juhl. The doubles pair of Salvador and Lopez dominated in their set win with a score of 8-4.
In similar fashion, SAC’s second doubles pair of freshmen Luke Jenson and Wilson Nguyen won with a set score of 8-5 against the Knights’s freshmen duo of Michael Revino and Yared Gezehegne.
During the final doubles match, the Knights’s freshmen pair of Jonathan Pham and Miguel Ynson prevented Mt. SAC from sweeping the doubles matches against the SAC pair of sophomore Tyler Perez and freshman Thomas Folsom in a doubles set with a score of 8-5.
Overall, Mt. SAC edged the Knights 2-1 in doubles matches.
Singles play began with stellar performances led by Kaden Salvador who set the tone with back-to-back 6-0 sets against San Diego’s Jonathan Pham.
Mt. SAC freshmen Thien Nguyen and Thomas Folsom shined in their matchups each registering set scores of 6-2 and 6-0 respectively. Nguyen, went 6-0 in his first set and 6-2 in the second. against the Knights’s Michael Revino. Folsom faced sophomore Porter Niccum from San Diego and edged him out, 6-2, during the first set and swept the second set, 6-0.
Mt. SAC started strong in all of their singles matches building firm leads in all of them and kept the Knights at bay seemingly with ease.
The sole loss in singles came by the San Diego City Knights’s Yared Gezehagne who faced SAC’s freshman Wilson Nguyen.
Mt. SAC came away with a 5-1 record in singles matches to complete the overall victory over the Knights, 7-2.
The nine-game matchup proved to be a good show of progress in the strength of the team’s doubles play according to assistant coach Erik Evangelista Martinez.
“The things we’ve been working on the last couple of weeks boys are implementing, and we took two out of the three matches,” Martinez said.
Martinez continued, saying that the team usually struggled in doubles. Regarding singles play, coach Martinez communicated his satisfaction, saying that singles play is the team’s strength. “Guys are cruising,” he said and acknowledged the team sensing blood in the water to close out their sets in dominating fashion.
SAC will hit the road for their next three matches and will not be home until Saturday, March 23 against the Imperial Valley Warriors, a match that was rescheduled from March 19 due to scheduling conflicts.