Heading toward regionals, the Warrior’s tennis teams had one last stop in the Ojai Tournament to see how prepared they were to face their thoughest competition of the season.
The Ojai Tournament is the largest tournament of the season.
“The Ojai tournament is very prestigious,” coach Steve Van Kanegan said. “But it serves as pride and preparation for regional.”
For the men and women who qualified, the tournament serves as a good measurement of what skills have been mastered and what areas need improvement.
“For practice, we’re just going to focus on hitting a lot of balls and to play points,” VanKanegan said.
The regional will be at Santa Barbara for the women and in Riverside for the men beginning today at 9 a.m.
The tennis team only saw one player proceed past the second round with Tsuyoshi Nagaoko. The other man playing, Keith Boggero, was eliminated in the second round while the men’s doubles team had only one team in Clark Coble and Tsuyoshi advance past the first round.
For the women, only Kacy Turner advanced past the first round, only to lose in the second. For the women’s double team, the spotlight was on the team of Turner and Lateefa Brown performing as a unit, but they failed to reach the second round while the team of Nicole Gudeau and Berlyn Malda lost in the second round.
“Lateefa and I played the best team but despite losing, we are playing better,” No. 2 player Turner said. “We haven’t played a lot together because of the players dropping from the team.”
The men’s qualifiers consist of team captain Clark Coble, No. 1 player Nagaoko and No. 3 player Boggero as well as all three of the men’s doubles teams.
“Tsuyoshi has an excellent chance to qualify for state and both him and Coble have a good chance to qualify,” VanKanegan said. “Keith, if he plays well, has a chance to upset a couple players.”
For the women, the qualifiers include only Kacy Turner and the doubles team of Turner and No.1 player Brown.
“Kacy has been playing very well, but she is an underdog because there are the top players in California,” VanKanegan said. “As for the pair of them, if they play well together, they have a chance to upset a few seeds.”
For preparation before the regional, the focus would be to get some time playing a game of points and to just get the feel of competition before the actual matches begin.
“We definitely want something just light like playing with points, but also with a focus,” VanKanegan said.
Despite qualifying for regional, the players must maintain their focus and keep their egos in check because the best competition will be their upcoming opponents.
“We have to go in there with the mindset that this person is going to be very good,” Turner said. “We have to be on our toes, you don’t want to be too cocky.”
