Glendale Community College men’s tennis is stung in conference tournament

While the Western State Conference tournament was unkind to the Glendale Community College men’s tennis team, the Vaqueros still posted some success Saturday afternoon at Ventura College.

Glendale advanced its conference championship doubles team to the tournament’s semifinals next Friday back at Ventura College, while other players clinched berths to the season-ending Ojai Tournament on April 24.

“It was a trying weekend for the team,” Glendale Coach Bob MacKay said. “It was cold and windy out there, but our guys performed as best as they could.

“We’ve been saved all year by our doubles teams and they have carried us at times. I’m proud of the kids.”

Doubles play paved the way for Glendale again as Saturday’s conference tournament’s final round was the quarterfinals.

In the quarterfinals, the tournament’s top seed of Glendale High alumnus Hosep Orojian and sophomore Santiago Segovia had perhaps the easiest path to Friday’s semifinals.

Orojian and Segovia qualified with a walkover win over Ventura’s duo of Matheus Montero and Dylan Foster, who bowed out due to injury.

The duo was the only Glendale pair to advance to the conference semifinals as teammates Dro Dermegerdichian and Oleg Simonyan (both formerly of Hoover High) fell to the Bakersfield pair of Samuel Ramirez and Tim Roe, 7-6, 1-6, 10-3.

Glendale sophomores Dat Le and Son Tran also lost in the quarterfinals to Ventura College’s Vitor Mendes and Victor Dos Santos, 6-2, 6-2.

While the conference tournament may have ended for Dat Le and Son Tran, the pair is guaranteed a spot into the Ojai Tournament along with Orojian and Segovia.

The question that remains is who will be the conference’s third entry into Ojai.

That position is up for grabs between Dermegerdichian and Simonyan, Glendale’s duo of Clayton Pauff and Cameron Braun and Ramirez and Roe.

Pauff and Braun and Dermegerdichian and Simonyan will face off next week with that bid still up in the air.

According to MacKay, should Dermegerdichian and Simonyan win the playoff, then the Vaqueros pair would take the final berth.

However, a victory for Pauff and Braun would then allow Ramirez and Roe a chance as the Bakersfield pair would then host Pauff and Braun in another playoff.

“It’s confusing, I know,” MacKay said. “I would just hope that we have a Glendale team grabbing that last spot.”

In singles action, the Vaqueros were bounced from the conference tournament, although they still nabbed a couple of spots to Ojai for Orojian and Le.

Orojian was in the main draw and advanced to the quarterfinals after a victory over Ramirez.

Yet, the GCC singles player’s run ended when Orojian was defeated by Los Angeles Pierce’s Richard Catabona, 6-3, 6-3.

As for Le, the Vietnam native earned his advancement to Ojai through the backdraw.

Le picked up a walkover win versus Tran before defeating Dermegerdichian, 6-2, 6-1.

Dermegerdichian first beat teammate Pauff, 6-4, 2-6, 10-7 to reach the elimination match with Le.

Simonyan, who had also hoped to earn an Ojai berth out of the backdraw, made a bit of charge when he defeated Braun, 7-5, 6-2.

Unfortunately for Simonyan, the freshman fell to Ventura’s Montero in the next round.

“I thought we did OK and these guys ended up playing teammates, so that’s always different,” MacKay said. “Now we’re excited to get to the [team] playoffs and we’ll see who we get.”

Team playoff action begins on Tuesday.