Courtesy FAMU Sports Info
Returns of serves were the downfall of the Men’s tennis team at Florida A&M University this past Saturday when they faced the College of Charleston Cougars.
The matches took place at the Florida A&M University Tennis Court. The Rattlers faced the College of Charleston Cougars.
The first loss took place during the doubles tournament (6-4) and the Rattler’s lost all of the singles’ matches..
FAMU’s head coach, Carl Goodman remained reserved and collected throughout the matches today.
“They are executing pretty good, but they haven’t closed out like they should’ve at the end of the sets,” Goodman said.
“Otherwise they are playing pretty well, this week we’ve been working on returns of serves and trying to stay aggressive, and they have been doing that.”
Walter Espinoza and Courage Okungbowa, two sophomore players at FAMU, were defeated by Charlie Ghriskey and Josh Record of COCC (6-4).
The Rattlers were faced with defeat again when two sophomores, Carols Waitman and Karlyn Small, lost to Brice Allanic a senior student at COCC and Franz Sydow a sophomore at COCC (6-3).
Joel Ovonlen-Jones, a freshman at FAMU, and Jason Ulacia, a sophomore, were both defeated by COCC upperclassmen Garrett Gordon and Vasily Kichingin (6-4).
The Charleston Cougars quickly dominated the singles portion of the game:
Karlyn Small was torched by Rodrigo Encinas (6-2,6-2). Walner Espinoza was defeated by Brice Allanic (6-4,6-2).
Charlie Ghriskey cleared Courage Okungbowa (6-4, 6-2). Carols Waitman was dominated by Vasily Kichingin (6-1, 6-1).
Joel Ovolen-Jones was beaten by Z. Lewis (7-6,6-3). Lastly, Jason Ulacio was demolished by Franz Sydow (6-0, 6-0).
Jason Ulacia a sophomore at FAMU used his defeat as motivation to work harder for the next game.
“Every match is different and you have different situations in the matches, most of it was that they came out strong early and got ahead more quickly,” said Ulacia “We’re really going to focus on getting a head start early on in the match.”
If Ulacia can encourage the rest of the team to stay motivated the way he is, the Rattlers will come out stronger in their next game, later on today at 5:00p.m. at the Indoor Tennis Facility against Florida State University.