GCC’s mens tennis team may not have had its top singles player or its best outing, but it did have its best shouting match of the season.
Without the services of sophomore Emmanuel Haug to a knee injury that has him sidelined indefinitely, grinding out wins is going to be the key to the Vaqueros’ season this year.
Unfortunately for the Vaqueros (7-3, 4-1 in conference), Cypress (11-2) got the better of them on Saturday afternoon, beating the Vaqs 6-3.
“I knew how good Cypress was.” Mackay said “They are solid one through six and they go all the way down with lots of depth.”
Cypress captured the victory with four singles sets, one of those sets coming at the expense of University of Las Vegas Nevada transfer Rony Yeghnazary who gave undefeated Cypress star Sam Tozer all he could handle, verbally and non verbally.
The physical contest between the two top talents on court one took a break in their second set when Yeghnazary and Tozer got into a heated confrontation about a ball touching the line.
“He thought it was in, I saw it touch the line.” Yeghnazary said
Tozer and Yeghnazary went into a third set tiebreaker which saw Tozer come out victorious to remain undefeated.
“I didn’t play well at all.” Yeghnazary said after the match.
Ben Thompson, Shane Patel and Samir Haikal earned the other three singles victories for the Chargers, owners of a nine game winning streak. Joey Tresierras and Paul Nagapetyan were the two bright spots for the Vaqs, who won their respective singles sets.
Tresierras, a freshman nicknamed “The Cardiac Kid” by his parents for grinding out last minute victories against his opponents, brushed aside Cypress’ Corey Parker 6-3, 6-3 in the singles match and later paired up with sophomore Ryan Stansbury to earn an 8-6 doubles victory.
Cypress coach Jeff Benito said that his team’s depth was useful, especially in the doubles.
“I think it would have been different if they had Emmanuel. The depth helped us.”
“We’ve got some good games coming up against some top opponents.” Coach MacKay said. “There’s some good tennis to be played.”
The Vaquero’s match is at home to Riverside College at 2 p.m.
