For UCSD, the doubles team of Roxy Pourmirzaie and Tara Vanooteghm, and singles players Cindy Dao and Haley Perrotte won their respective matches, while the rest of the Tritons suffered defeat en route to the loss.
Coach Liz LaPlante, in her 32nd year as head coach at UCSD, expressed optimism about the rest of the season.
“We have some freshman players, for some girls they are playing their first collegiate matches, we are rearranging doubles teams and I’m very optimistic that we will get better.” LaPlante said.
This defeat comes after the Lady Tritons were swept 9-0 against Azusa Pacific this past Saturday.
While the Tritons have been practicing for some time, they are still trying to establish a regular line-up, and many changes are expected for the next few weeks as the team plays more matches.
“We’ve been practicing, but actually playing you get a whole different view,” LaPlante said. “We’re still trying to tweak with the line-up.”
The team will head to Arizona later this week for the Grand Canyon Invitational, where UCSD will face three Division II teams in Dallas Baptist, Hawaii Hilo and Hawaii Pacific.
“We’re not quite sure how strong they are, we haven’t played the team from Dallas in years, but Hawaii Pacific is going to be very tough,” LaPlante said.
She did express confidence that the Tritons would be able to win at least one of the three matches they are playing.
LaPlante said she expects to continue the success she has had in the past.
“For me personally, I’m ready for anything,” LaPlante said.
The Triton men opened their season with a bang by routing University of Redlands and Division I UC Riverside over the weekend.
Against Redlands, the Tritons only dropped one set in singles competition, with Chapman Chan, Junya Yoshida, Erik Elliott, Vincent Nguyen and Austin West winning their matches in straight sets. Sam Ling also won his match after dropping the first set.
Redlands won their only match of the double in the doubles competition, but the pairings of Elliott-West and Yoshida-Ling won their matches to give the Tritons the 8-1 win.
Against Riverside, Elliott led the way with a 6-4, 6-1 victory in No. 1 singles. Overall, UCSD won five of the six singles matches and two of three doubles matches, although only one was recorded in the final score. UCSD took the victory by a score of 6-1.
The Triton men will also compete in the Grand Canyon Invitational. Once they return from Arizona, the Triton women will have a week off before facing Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on Saturday, Feb. 18 at 11 a.m. at UCSD. The men’s squad will travel to Azusa Pacific on Feb. 17.
Readers can contact Jon Kaslow at [email protected]
