UC San Diego Table Tennis
UC San Diego Table Tennis team participated in the Southern California Divisionals held in California State Northridge on November 7th. The team was able to send 4 different teams to the competition including Co-ed Varsity, Women’s Varsity, JV1, and JV2. Co-ed Varsity hung on to receive 3rd place finish with a 5-2 record. It won its first 3 matches comfortably before coming short against the top 2 schools in the division USC and UCLA. The toughest match was against the home team, CSUN, deciding the 3rd place winner. The team pulled through with a great 3-1 victory after strong performances from Gregory Yip and Jinhui Yan. Older team members Khoi Nguyen and Nelson also had notable victories, as well as new members Ryan Yau, Jerry Cheng, and Ryan Chen.
Women’s Varsity finished the tournament with a 4th place finish with great performances from team captain Claire Chen, and team members Kailin Zhang, Dafne Sanchez, Tian Zeng, and Joyce Sun.
JV1 ranked 3rd third in their tournament behind USC and UCLA after losing two close matches 2-3 and breezing through the rest of the competition with comfortable victories. Team members Thomson Hui and Zihao Zhao had notable performances, and new members Hanson Qin and Travis Welburn had strong debuts.
JV2 was the team of the day after winning 1st place in their tournament with a fantastic 5-1 record. The team had hard-fought victories against USC and UCLA winning both matches 3-1. The team also had a great comeback victory against Cal Poly Pomona after being down 2-0. Henry Mao led the comeback with a nail-biting 3-2 win against his opponent before playing doubles and sealing the comeback for UCSD with a 3-2 win. The team was led by strong performances from Joseph Guarnes and Alexander Chen.
Overall, UC San Diego Table Tennis team had a tournament to remember and a great time during the competition. The team resumed practice following the tournament with great aspirations to improve and produce even better results in future tournaments. The team’s next tournament will be the Spring Southern California Divisionals in early February 2016.
