Coach Billy Martin knew this season would be a learning
experience.
From day one, it was pretty clear that there was too much youth
and inexperience for it not to be.
And as the UCLA men’s tennis team stepped off the court
last Saturday with a 4-3 victory over California, Martin knew his
Bruins had learned one of their most important lessons of the
year.
“You’ve got to know you can win the close
one,” Martin said. “So far nobody had really stepped up
and won that last match. It was crucial for our team
development.”
Prior to their 4-3 triumph over Cal, the No. 7 Bruins (15-4, 4-0
Pac-10) had been involved in four other 4-3 matches. And they had
lost every one.
With just three regular season matches remaining, beginning
today when UCLA faces Oregon in Eugene, Saturday’s match was
a necessary lesson if the Bruin defending champions possess any
designs for postseason success.
“It means a lot,” junior Benjamin Kohlloeffel said.
“If it sticks into your head that you can’t win those
close matches, it can stay with you the whole year and even
longer.”
The team’s four losses this year have been to No. 1
Georgia, No. 2 Pepperdine, No. 4 Baylor and No. 15 Stanford. Not a
bad defeat among them. But no one wanted to add No. 24 Cal to that
list.
“This was the first team where we were better and the
favorite and we had to win it,” Kohlloeffel said.
“It’s even more important to win those kinds of
matches.”
UCLA will once again be the favorite this weekend, and two
victories would clinch at least a share of the Pac-10 title. The
Bruins are trying to secure their third consecutive conference
crown.
Martin was pretty frank when speaking about Oregon (6-13, 0-4),
the team’s first Pacific Northwest opponent.
“Oregon is probably by far the weakest Pac-10 team,”
he said. “We shouldn’t have any problems unless we just
really do a bad job of lowering our level.”
Washington (15-4, 2-1) is a different story. The teams have
already met once this season, with the Bruins registering a 4-1
victory in the final consolation round of the National Team Indoor
Championships.
“To me, the Washington match will be a really tough
one,” Martin said. “You know they’re going to
really want to get revenge. I’m expecting that to be a real
dogfight, and I hope the guys go into it thinking that this is
really to win the Pac-10 championship.”
The team, and the freshmen in particular, will know that a lot
has changed since that first meeting.
“When we started the year, it was a bit uneasy and
unsure,” freshman Michael Look said. “We were very
young, and we didn’t know where each other fit into the team.
As the season has gone on, we’ve worked that out, and
everyone has bonded a whole lot better now.”
The Bruins are currently riding a five-match win streak, a
streak that they hope to extend to eight by the time the NCAA
Tournament starts.
And then the real fun begins.
“We have three more matches, and then boom, it’s
right to the NCAAs,” Kohlloeffel said. “We have a good
chance.”