On Thursday, March 21, Mt. SAC women’s tennis became the conference champions after defeating the El Camino Warriors with a total score of 8–1.
SAC’s three doubles teams handily defeated the Warriors to build an early 3-0 set lead.
The day started in dominant fashion for SAC as freshmen Julianna Vich and Paige Valenzuela stood out in their match against sophomores Pranathi Chamarthi and Kamila Bustos posting a shutout score of 8–0.
The other Mt. SAC doubles teams also put up strong scores against the Warriors. Freshman Joana Cordova–Alva and Jocelyn Aviles won their match 8–1 against sophomores Kathy Magallanes and Caroline Paskus while SAC freshman Sage Youschak and sophomore Anh Nguyen defeated freshmen Karen Canela and Jhanine Estigoy 8–3.
Vich’s dominating performance didn’t stop in doubles play as she put up yet another perfect score in her singles match against Warriors sophomore Pranathi Chamarthi. Vich went 6–0 against Chamarthi in both sets.
Mt. SAC only gave up one victory in the six singles matches against the Warriors. Freshman Emma Cervantes’s singles match against freshman Jhanine Estigoy proved to be the most competitive match of the day. Cervantes would drop the first set, 4-6, come back in the second set narrowly, 7-6 and eventually lose her final set 7-3.
Freshmen Valenzuela and Azalia Rodriguez were on shutout alerts in their singles match. Valenzuela would only surrender two points to sophomore Kamila Bustos total and went 6–2 in her first set while keeping a donut in her opponent’s score column in her second set, 6–0. Rodriguez was nearly perfect in her sets against freshman Karen Canela going 6–1 in the first and 6–0 in the second where Canela would score off an out-of-bounds error Rodriguez would make early in the first set.
According to Valenzuela, the team went into these matches knowing that if they walked away with the overall win they would end the day as conference champions.
“We were trying not to get too nervous or too excited and just play our game,” Valenzuela said. The team collectively wanted to be as calm and collected throughout their match and control what they could control.
According to head coach Lee Shiomoto, the team had a strong showing and stuck to their game plan going into the matches.
“Our strengths were that we just played consistent tennis and when we do that, we are always going to be in good shape,” Shiomoto said.
Mt. SAC women’s tennis will participate in the South Coast Conference tournaments starting Friday, April 5. SAC’s next opponent has not been announced as they await the loser between the Victor Valley Rams who are the Inland Empire Athletic Conference and their next opponent based on winning percentage of the Western State Conference.
