Yay, the first tournament of the Spring Quarter!

After waking up at 6 am to travel to UCSB for their first match of the day, the UCSD A Team plays UCSB A Team on a homecourt disadvantage. Ronin Suzuki and Ethan Liu start off the day with a close loss, losing 4-5 in the tiebreaker but with low expectations, they were happy with their results. Lesa Ritchie and Rachel Brown start off their day with a tough loss against a really solid doubles pair but it didn't stop them from having fun! With the wet backcourts on the center court, Sebastian Smith had trouble finding a grip on the singles match and unfortunately lost to a talented opponent. Sisi Leong on the other hand had a quick and clean match, winning the set in no time, bringing the Tritons their first match win! Abhishek Nisha Anish and Rachel Sherrill also played 2 very talented mixed players that unfortunately had stops to all their answers.

After speeding through Claremont B Team in a quick and tidy fashion of a 30 - 6 score, the Tritons face off against Pepperdine A Team like in Sectionals last year. Sebastian Smith and Ronin Suzuki barely lost another tight tiebreaker set, falling just short of a win. Lesa Ritchie and Rachel Brown again faced off 2 players from their Nationals team last year, although winning a few crucial games, they were unable to secure the win for the team. Trey Vasquez who was on his villain arc decided to pull through with a fashionable win leading Tritons to their first match victory of the face-off. Sisi Leong coming off a hot win in the morning continued her journey to another win against their Nationals singles player, which pushes Tritons to a lead coming into the mixed doubles match. Rachel Sherrill and Abhishek Nisha Anish although lost, secured 4 games in their mixed match which gave them exactly a 2 game lead going into overtime, which was enough for them to secure the win against Pepperdine!

Sunday morning, UCSD A Team faced off against UCI A Team, while still tired from the day before, Ronin and Ethan struggled to wake up and fell short in the match. However, Lesa and Rachel Brown secured their first win of the tournament, which everyone was really proud of, and helped maintain a close total scoreline. Sebastian started off with a quick 3-0 lead, but then his opponent started making unfair and suspicious calls, which frustrated Sebastian and slowly ended in a loss. Dany Gama on the other hand played a close match against the UCI singles player, but also fell short in the match. Finally, Abhi and Rachel Sherrill started their day with a good warm-up but like the previous day, they had trouble with the wet back courts which caused them to slip and lose some unfortunate points.

Although the Tritons didn't achieve the outcome they hoped for, they still had a lot of fun playing at UCSB, and it was an overall great team-bonding experience!