At the conclusion of the first day of the CCCAA State Championships in Ojai, the Cerritos College men's tennis team advanced five of their six singles players and all three doubles teams. The Falcons, who won the CCCAA Team Dual State Championship the day before, saw two of their unranked singles players post wins over seeded players, while all three doubles pairings are seeded at the tournament.
In one of the four brackets, #1-seeded Kent Hunter (Home Schooled) breezed through Thallys Santos, the #3 singles player from Irvine Valley College, 6-2, 6-0. Undefeated on the season, Hunter will now face San Diego Mesa College's Sasha Kovacevic in the Round of 32. His doubles partner, #3-seeded Victor Castro (Novo Hamburgo, Brazil) earned a 6-1, 6-2 win over Lohan Zaccarias of Mt. San Jacinto College in his lone match of the day. He will take on #13-seeded Stephen Morley of Folsom Lake College on Friday morning. In the duo's doubles match on Thursday, Hunter and Castro, seeded #1, dispatched Derek Higgins and Melvin Santos of Mt. San Jacinto, 6-0, 6-0. Next up is #15-seeded Steven Blancas and Chandler Hosepian of Fresno City College.
The Falcons #3 singles player during the season, freshman Alex Prokopchuk (School 45, Ukraine), who's seeded #7 in the tournament, earned a 6-1, 6-2 over Ryan Fabre of Saddleback College and will face unseeded Augustine Lestelle of Ventura College, who is the Pirates #4 singles player, in the Round of 32. In their only doubles match of the day, Prokopchuk and sophomore Marcos Paulo Silvestre (Colégio Tiradentes of PMMG, Brazil), who are seeded #2, posted a 6-0, 6-1 win against Mike Simmons and Jade Yang of Fresno City. On Friday morning, the duo will square off against Saddleback's Ryan Fabre and Chris Torcaso.
Picking up a win over #12-seeded Andrei Anderson of American River College, sophomore Biel Roca Carreras (Iguolada, Spain) will now face #5-seeded Solal Cherqui of Ventura in the Round of 32. Roca Carreras, who plays in the #4 singles position for the Falcons, takes on Cerqui, who is the #1 singles player for the Pirates. Also earning a win over a seeded player, freshman Dario Rico-Altozano (Colegio Cumbre, Spain) defeated #14-seeded Nick Reilley of Modesto College, 6-3, 6-1. He will now take on #4-seeded Kayne Trustfull of Riverside City College, who is their #1 singles player.
Rico-Altozano and sophomore Kwangeun Lee (Sunny Hills HS), who are seeded #15, eliminated Chris Hasrouni and Marco Tam of Orange Coast College, 6-3, 6-2. That has earned them the right to face #2-seeded Jay Pandit and Roger Wen of Chabot College on Friday afternoon. Lee became the team's only casualty of the first day, as he dropped a 4-6, 3-6 decision against #16-seeded Gavin Dail of Los Angeles Pierce College.