By Mike DeSanto
Staff Writer
The St. Bonaventure men’s tennis team continued its spring season this past weekend with matchups against Virginia Tech and Richmond. The Bonnies lost both matchups with a combined score of 14-0.
“The match against Virginia Tech was a good experience for us,” sophomore Carlos de La Cruz said. “Richmond was also a good experience because now we know how hard we have to work to achieve our goals in our conference.”
In looking back at his matches, sophomore Hector Martinez said he knows where he went wrong with his play.
“I had my opportunities and I didn’t take advantage of them,” Martinez said. “I think my performance could have been better if I would have executed my game plan better and taken advantage of my opportunities to go up.”
Reflecting on the past two matches, de La Cruz knows that “working harder and forgetting about the past results, but keeping the experience from both matches” will be important to helping the team improve going forward, he said.
The team’s next matchup will be against Mercyhurst at home on Feb. 14 at noon. Martinez is optimistic about the team’s chances and believes they have the ability to be successful.
“I think that we are going to be able to win and get more confidence for our next matches,” Martinez said. “Everyone is playing well on the team, so we should be good for this weekend.”
Martinez had his confidence echoed by de La Cruz, who knows his team has what it takes to win.
“My outlook is that we are going to prepare very well for playing against Mercyhurst,” de La Cruz said. “We are all hungry to play and to keep working harder because of the past two games against VT and Richmond.”
For his preparation, de La Cruz has a plan that he hopes to implement for the match against Mercyhurst.
“I will definitely work as hard as I can this week,” de La Cruz said. “I will work on things that did not allow me to (have) a better performance in the last weekend.”
Meanwhile, the women’s tennis team faced off against Mercyhurst and Colgate over the weekend. The team took a 5-2 loss to Colgate, but defeated Mercyhurst 5-2.
“As a team, I’m just proud of the fact that we supported each other and got in some really great points against very strong players,” sophomore Francesca Chin said.
Looking at her personal performance, Chin sees the positives of her play and the challenge she faced in her matches, she said.
“I felt that my performance against Mercyhurst was extremely competitive,” Chin said. “Colgate was a very strong team this year, so it was definitely one of my harder matches so far.”
Doubles play has been an issue for the team this season, and the Bonnies are looking to improve their level of competing moving forward.
“I think we are mostly looking to improve in our doubles play and being more aggressive at the net,” Chin said. “That will take us far.”
The women’s next matchups will be on Feb. 13 and 14 when they travel to West Point to face Army and the University of Massachusetts at an undetermined time. Chin believes that she and the team are ready to face such steep competition.
“I believe that we’ll be extremely competitive against Army,” Chin said. “UMass is predicted to be a tough one for us but it’s something we’re more than happy to take on.”
The men’s team will enter its home matchup against Mercyhurst hoping to improve on a 1-4 record, but with the benefit that its one win on the season came in a home match. The women’s team will also look to improve, currently sitting at 1-3, by picking up the first road wins of the season.
