On March 15 at the Pfister Tennis Complex at Bakersfield College, the men’s tennis team played their most competitive match against a conference opponent to date, but lost 5-4 in a close match to Glendale College.
On the same day in Glendale, the women’s squad lost 7-2.
In the men’s singles matches, No. 3 Joshua Thomas (BC) defeated Andre Ratavousian (Glen.) 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, No. 4 Aaron Hernandez (BC) beat Francisco Ochoa (Glen.) 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (9-7), No. 5 Joseph Theisen (BC) beat Chaz Hall (Glen.) 7-5, 6-4, and in the doubles, No.3 Thomas/Raji Rivera (BC) defeated Rick Ivynian Eric Khanlarian (Glen.) 9-8 (7-4).
On the women’s side, No. 5 singles Kassandra Beadle (BC) beat Katherine Akmakji (Glen.) 6-4,6-4, and No. 3 doubles Kim Butler/Morgan Frazier (BC) defeated Brianna Hayes/ Katherine Akmakji (Glen.) 8-4.
On March 16, the men’s squad was blanked 9-0 by Santa Barbara City College, and the women’s team lost 8-1 at BC.
The only win for BC on the day was No. 5 Beadle defeating Hannah Erickson 6-4, 6-4.
The scheduled matches between BC and the Allan Hancock women on March 20 was canceled and considered a forfeit. As Allan Hancock did not field a women’s team this year.
Reflecting back on the women’s matches against SBCC, BC assistant coach Chuck Provencio offered the following when discussing the strength of the SBCC women’s squad.
“I believe they are second ranked in conference right now. I think this year they’ve only lost one doubles match,” he said.
“They played so well today, our girls battled, and a lot of the times they could not come up with the answers.”
“Santa Barbara kind of had everything today, so I know we didn’t play our best tennis, but we definitely showed a lot of heart and fought as best we could.”
Some of the things the women will be working on will be centered on the mental approach.
“We’re going to start working on the mental game a little bit,” he said.
“The girls are doing a really good job of starting their points. They’ve all got great strokes, great movement on the court.
“We’re starting to put together some of the tactical and strategic components, but we’ve got to add now a little bit more mental fortitude.”
“We kind of lose focus when the point gets a little longer, or we get down on ourselves and we lose points.
“So we’re going to start looking at how to build up the mental game a bit.”
The mental game for the BC women seemed to be much improved on March 22.
As they beat Santa Monica College 6-3 at their place, but the men’s squad was shut out 9-0 in BC by Los Angeles Pierce College.
The victorious women’s matches were No. 3 Butler, No. 4 Haleigh Dilbeck, No. 5 Beadle, No. 6 Jyll Hernando in singles. Also, No. 2 Griffin/Dilbeck, and No. 3 Butler/Demler were victorious in the doubles.
No. 4 Dilbeck talked about her match and also discussed how she was able to turn it around not once, but twice during her match.
“She beat me in the first set, but in the second set I got really intense and beat her,” she said.
And in the third set, she was up 5-2 and it was really hot for both of us. We were really tired. We were just struggling to keep going.
“I got a little bit angry that I was losing, and then I won five straight games and ended up winning the match.”
“Honestly, I think I started focusing better and the adrenaline kicked in, and then I started playing smart, started thinking.”
On the schedule for March 29, the men play at number-one seeded Ventura College, and the women face them at BC.