Men’s tennis wins eighth straight Region I championship
The Mesa Community College men’s tennis team came out of the Region I tournament as champions for the eighth straight year.
It seems as if championships are just a tradition now for the MCC men’s tennis team, as last week they won the Region I championship. This comes after winning the ACCAC championship the previous week.
They won both championships in similar fashion as they topped Paradise Valley Community College in the finals of both tournaments to secure the victory. This is the fourth victory of the season against PVCC, which in itself is tough to do.
“PVCC is very strong, to be able to beat a team once tough, twice is harder, three and four times when you get to that fourth time beating someone that knows you so well it takes a lot of focus, determination and grit, and that’s what our leadership showed,” said head coach Feroz Rast, “our mental focus and our mental toughness was tested and that’s what takes to beat a team four times in a short amount of time.”
Freshman Cameron Khan, who won a doubles match against PVCC that helped MCC take the ACCAC championship, knew the key to winning regionals was to prepare for PVCC again and focus on the task at hand.
“During the week in practice leading up to it, everybody was focused on realizing what we have to do,” said Khan, “On the guys’ side we’ve been pretty close with Paradise Valley this year and we knew they were going to be the biggest competition going into regionals.”
With some time off before the national tournament in mid-May, the team has many things on their agenda in order to stay on top of their game and become stronger in order to be successful.
First and foremost is getting healthy, as they have had a couple players injured as of late. The depth of the team was key for the team to win at regionals, so at nationals, the team hopes to be at full strength in order to compete against the elite competition.
Coach Rast wants the team to continue to work hard on the court, and in the classroom, to keep up with the habits they have grown accustomed to. Khan believes practice is going to be key for them
“We gotta keep it intense at practice. Realizing the competition we’re going to see is going to be similar to the matches we played early in the season against NAU and New Mexico State,” said Khan, “there’s gonna be guys at that level out there. Now we know what it looks like because we played against those D1 programs.”
When MCC played up in competition against division one and NAIA programs, they were able to hold their own. According to Coach Rast, those were the matches that helped them grow as players and boosted their confidence.
“We knew that those losses, even though they were losses on paper, we were learning from those experiences by playing two and three divisions up above our level. I know our athletes learned from it very well,’ said Rast.
Nationals will draw some of the best tennis programs from around the country, and for those who have not experienced it before, it may be a little overwhelming. Luckily for MCC, they go into the tournament confident given their track record against programs similar to those they played this season.
The men’s team was not the only one that experienced success at the regional tournament, as the women’s team finished in a hard-fought second place after falling to Eastern Arizona College by a single point.
“We pushed hard and we gave it all we could give and sometimes it just doesn’t go your way,” said Rast, “we knew we could get them and we came up just short but still very proud of the girls.”
The women’s team had some success going 9-6 overall and 6-3 in conference play. With a team composed mainly of freshmen, one of the only returning players is captain Kendra Farrell. She believes inexperience may have been a reason why they lost to Eastern Arizona.
“To be honest even for me I felt like a freshman during the regional tournament because last year it wasn’t like that just because it was only me and one other girl,” said Farrell, “I think next year these girls are going to do even better and I believe they can truly win it, because they’ll have this experience already.”
Farrell, who competed in nationals last year, tried to give advice to the women’s team as going to nationals might cause some to be frazzled or nervous.
“The biggest thing I tell them is to stay calm. The first match I played in at nationals I was very nervous,” said Farrell, “I just tell them to stay calm, your job is to hit that ball and that you’re on your court, don’t worry about what’s going on, it’s easy to get distracted because there’s a lot going on.”
Last year in the national tournament, the men’s team finished 12th and the women’s team finished 29th. The women’s national tournament begins May 7 and will be held in Tucson, AZ. The men’s tournament begins May 16 and will be held in Tyler, TX.
