By Pristine Tompkin

The RCC men’s tennis team finished the season strong winning the singles and doubles championships on April 9 in the Orange Empire Conference Tournament.

RCC took home the OEC doubles crown after a strong showing from their duo of Stanislas Bedrune and Victor Love.

Bedrune and Love defeated Sergio Palacio and Tam Duong of Orange Coast College, 8-6, in one of the most intense matchups of the day.

Despite the success, Bedrune thought the team could have been more successful.

“The team’s overall performance this season was not amazing,” he said. “I thought the team was capable of doing better.”

Love is optimistic that the team will improve .

“For next year we will do as good for sure,” he said. “And I hope better than this season.”

Bedrune and Love as a team finished with an 7-3 record overall this season.

They also did well as singles players, Love finished with an overall record of 9-5 and Bedrune finished with an 11-4 overall record.

Freshman Samuel Paque, another top singles competitor, captured the OEC men’s singles title by dominating Riku Goto of Saddleback College 7-2 in the championship match.

This year’s team was filled with high performing diverse athletes, out of the 12 men that are on the team, eight of them are from another country.

Freshman Trent Harris, who finished with a 9-7 overall single record, spoke of the team’s diversity.

“I like all the guys on the team and we are pretty close,” he said. “We also have a lot of foreign players on the team so it’s pretty cool to learn about their background and how they arrived at RCC.”

Thomas Yancey led the Tigers to an 10-9 overall record in his first year as head coach.

They finished 5-5 in the OEC and were ranked fourth in the OEC standings.