Cosumnes River College’s men’s tennis team spent a warm spring afternoon battling it out against Sacramento City College at a home game on March 10.

The Los Rios sister schools both put in a good effort, but after two and a half hours the Panthers won 7-2.

“It was decent. We played well, we could have done better,” said freshman player Ian Fong. “There was a couple of critical points that we lost that we probably could have kept going, but it just is how it is.”

The team of five faced some adversity with injury-plagued players like freshman Ricky Lam.

“Today I couldn’t really play well since my rotator cuff was stressed out, but if it wasn’t stressed out I would have done well,” Lam said.

Head Coach Matthew Emmett said that the doubles matches followed a pattern that is common for the team of starting strong, but losing focus towards the middle and not being able to bring the score back up. He said the singles matches were more competitive than those of the past and that he was proud of the entire team.

“It was nice to see Cesar Chavez [freshman player] and Daniel Gonzales [sophomore player] get their first victories,” Emmett said. “Everybody else also put in a good effort and a good fight.”

Fong said that he thought the Panthers were a fair match for them.

“It was pretty even, we could have taken some more wins, but we got two so that’s not bad,” Fong said.

Lam said CRC and Sacramento City are evenly matched.

“They’re not really below us, but they’re aren’t really above us either,” Lam said. “Just the way we play, we can keep up with them and they can keep up with us.”

Panthers sophomore Russell Spence said his team learned from their past matches with the Hawks to gain the upperhand.

“We played them when they came to us and knew what we needed to do and improve on from last time and so we capitalized on what we had learned,” Spence said.

Spence said that he thinks the Hawks are a good team, but need to work on their individual game.

“For the most part they are very well organized,” Spence said. “Just individually they each need to get a little better.”

The Hawks next match is on March 13 at Modesto Junior College.

“We have until Friday to get ready for our next game. We’ll bring our best, but you can only do what you can do with what you have,” Fong said.

Lam said that he is feeling good going into the rest of the season.

“Moving on, I feel pretty comfortable,” Lam said. “The main thing is if we lose we just need to learn from it and just improve on our game and if we win we also have to be able to pull something from that as well.”

Emmett said that in upcoming games he is looking to continue to improve on the team’s ability to stay focused and intense throughout entire matches.

“What I’m looking for is similar to the goal I set for this match,” Emmett said. “The continued goal going into our next match is being able to physically and mentally bring our best consistent play across the match from the first ball to the last.”