This article was originally published in ZU News.
The men’s and women’s tennis team posted back-to-back wins over UC San Diego and Point Loma on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
The 23rd-ranked women’s team beat ninth-ranked UC San Diego 6-3 on Thursday and then beat Point Loma 6-3 on Saturday.
Senior Toby Miclat was key to both of the Cougars’ wins. Miclat had two wins in singles, with a 6-2, 6-1 win against UC San Diego.
“It wasn’t an easy match, but we won quickly. My opponent was good, but I just played better. It’s really nice when you win personally and that’s validated by a team win,” Miclat said.
Miclat had a 6-2, 6-3 win against Point Loma in singles and also won in her doubles match with junior Kara Hinton 8-4.
“We played clean today. It’s always good to start with two wins in doubles. It relieved a lot of stress when Jackie [Resler] and April [Wong] won their two matches,” Miclat said.
Senior Jackie Resler also came in big for the Cougars. She won 6-2, 6-1 in singles against UC San Diego and 6-2, 6-1 against Point Loma.
“I just kept playing my game. I thought I played really well. I was mentally strong and didn’t back down. I think I intimidated my opponent to make her think she needed to play harder,” Resler said. “They want to beat us so badly. But we played really strong as a team and supported each other. They’re a great team to play against.”
Head coach Mark Bohren said he was proud of the way both the women’s and men’s team played.
“For the start of the season, I think both teams played well. Point Loma had a good showing too, we were just a little better at each position on the men’s side,” Bohren said. “On the women’s side, all the matches were competitive, we were fortunate to win, but we’ll take it.”
Bohren said that the wins against UC San Diego were key for the overall season.
“It’s always a battle when we play UC San Diego. It’s never easy,” Bohren said. “We were lucky to be on the winning end.”
The men’s team, ranked fifth in the nation, beat 15th-ranked UC San Diego 8-1 and Point Loma 9-0.
“Friday was a tough match, even though on paper it seemed like an easy 8-1 win. Lots of our guys lost the first set so they had to battle back to win, which they did. All of our guys came out on top in singles. We also showed that we have a strong doubles side after we started 2-1 in doubles,” graduate student Oliver Frank said.
Frank won both of his matches against both UC San Diego and Point Loma. He won 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (10-8) against UC San Diego and 6-3, 6-4 against Point Loma.
“I had a tough opponent today, but I felt more confident than yesterday, confident in my shots. I didn’t have as many unforced errors as yesterday,” Frank said. “I struggled a little bit going into the season, but this match gave me confidence and I’m getting back to the point I was at last season.”
Even though they only dropped one out of the eighteen possible points between both matches, Frank said the team has room for improvement.
“We know we have to improve in certain aspects. That’s what we’re working on. Even though we won 9-0 today and 8-1 yesterday, there’s still stuff we can work on to get better that we’ll need against the big opponents as we go into nationals. We’ll try to learn from the mistakes that we had these past two days, work hard and move on,” Frank said. “This is showing us that we’re moving in the right direction as the season progresses and we’re all excited and confident to move on and play match by match.”
The women’s team will head out to Cal State Los Angeles on Feb. 12. The men and women will have a week off after that, and on Monday, Feb. 19, both teams will face Cornerstone Cup rival, Biola University, in La Mirada, Calif.