Even though the men’s tennis team won its first conference match last week, the members know they still have more work to do if they want to continue their success.

One week to work

The Warriors will have more than a week to work on their flaws.

Their next match is Tuesday at 2 p.m. when they travel to Mt. SAC, which defeated them 8-1 earlier this year.

“They (Mt. SAC) have no weak spots, so they are tough to beat,” Jason Olson said. “We have to stay mentally tough if we want to win.”

Olson helped the Warriors to a 6-3 victory over Cerritos last week when he won, 6-2, 6-3. The other victories came from Jay Sakolsatayatorn, 6-0, 6-4 and Jeff Lew, 7-6,7-5, 6-0.

The doubles team of Khoi Phan and Olson went 8-6; the other two victories followed a forfeit from Cerritos because of a lack of players.

Hard work pays off

“We have gotten a lot better and it showed in the Cerritos game,” Tyler Watanabe said. “The teams in our conference are tough, so we need more work if we want to win again.”

With only one game for the next two weeks, the Warriors feel they need to work on their “volleys and getting the ball back in play,” Watanabe said.

“The new players have adjusted well at the college level,” Olson said. “They have made this year’s team better and stronger than last year’s.”

Doubles need to follow suit

With good play coming from the Warriors’ single matches, coach Steve Van Kanegan hopes the double teams can follow suit.

“We had the same double pairs for the first couple of matches and they didn’t play so well,” Van Kanegan said. “Now we are going to mix teams up to see who will gel together.”

Van Kanegan will keep the No. 1 doubles team of Sakolsatayatorn and Sean Packwood together.

However, Van Kanegan feels Sakolsatayatorn and Packwood “still have a lot of growth left.”

Record improved

The Warriors’ victory over Cerritos improves their record to 2-4-1(1-2-1), with four more conference games left.

The players say they feel their record could have been better if it wasn’t for little flaws.

“We are better than what our record shows because a lot of our matches were close,” Olson said. “We just had trouble finishing matches. We need to be more aggressive.”