Knights men and women set to make some noise post-season

Gabe Rivera

The Knights women’s tennis team wrapped up the regular season on a high note, handling the Mesa College Olympians 8-1 on Thursday, April 6 at City College. It was the team’s sixth win in their last seven matches, bringing their record to 13-5 overall and 11-3 in the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference.

The players will compete in the PCAC  tournament this week, April 13-15, for a chance to go to the SoCal regionals April 26-30. The top 15 players from the PCAC tourney will move on to the next level.

The Knights No. 1 player, sophomore Brianna Leigh-Pink, remained undefeated in singles play for the season by winning her match 6-0, 6-0. Her counterpart and the team’s No. 2 player, freshman Erica Letzring, also won her match 6-0, 6-0.

Leigh-Pink has only two years of experience playing tennis competitively, yet has already exhibited elite talent at the junior college level. She remained humble when asked what she attributed her successes to this season. “Definitely my coaches, Jami Jones and Brandon Lupian. German Ziella; he was definitely one of the main people that got me where I am right now. He started me playing tennis,” Leigh-Pink said. She’s played a range of sports but it appears she may have found one to stick with.

Knights Head Coach Jami Jones is in her fifth year at City and this season marks one of the most successful in the women’s program yet. She has the team playing at a high level while also showing excellent sportsmanship throughout their matches.

“We have a really strong team. We had a couple setbacks so we didn’t end up winning conference, but I was really happy with our season and the girls competed well. They got along great and really worked together team wise,” says Coach Jones.

She added, “This is the first year we’ve been really competitive as far as challenging for the conference, so I think that’s really positive and we can keep going in that direction.”

The team is ready to make some noise in this tournament in both singles and doubles play alongside the undefeated-in-conference Knights men’s tennis team.

Check out the City Times website for future updates on everything Knights’  at sdcitytimes.com.

Gabe Rivera is Sports Editor for City Times. You can follow him on Twitter @gaberivera619