Freshman Sam Slade won in No. 4 singles at the conference tournament. (photo by Bill Roa)
A freshman-dominated Georgia Perimeter College men’s tennis team wrapped up its 2014 season with a 6-5 record and, for the first time in four years, didn’t compete in the National Junior College Athletic Association national tournament in Texas.
Perennial tennis power Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College regained its dominance of the Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association with a 6-3 tournament championship victory over the mostly freshman Jaguars in Tifton in April.
Outside of the tournament loss to ABAC, however, the Jaguars were defeated only by nationally ranked four-year colleges—Emory University, Georgia Gwinnett College and Middlebury College (Vt.).
The ABAC Stallions won two doubles and four singles matches for the GCAA tournament title. The result may be labeled as a mild upset because Georgia Perimeter College–ranked above ABAC at No. 6 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association national poll–had seized the championship trophy a year ago and defeated ABAC 5-4 in February.
For a decade the Stallions dominated the conference until the Jaguars served notice in February 2013 with a 7-2 victory over ABAC in a three-way match at College of Coastal Georgia. In a February match this year at Dunwoody Campus, GPC’s doubles teams swept three matches from ABAC, and the Jaguars won 5-4.
Freshman Celestin Nkoueleue won the tournament’s No. 2 singles flight. (photo by Gerald Moulder)
Sophomore Chris Clark, along with teammate Sam Slade, won the No. 3 doubles flight at the GCAA event. (photo by Bill Roa)
In the tournament, the Jaguars collected singles victories by freshmen Sam Slade and Celestin Nkoueleue, and Slade and sophomore Chris Clark won their doubles match. Clark and Patrick Hackling were the only sophomores on the Jaguar roster.
Slade took the No. 4 singles title with a 6-1, 6-3 triumph over Corey Smith. He and Clark teamed up in No. 3 doubles to roll by Jonah Jakubec and Michael Bailey 6-1, 6-2.
In No. 2 singles, Nkoueleue dominated Jakubec 6-1, 6-1.
GPC freshman Juan Di Paola fell to the eventual No. 1 singles national champion, Joshua Page, 6-2, 6-2.
Other members on head coach Mohamed Nait Omar’s roster were freshmen Marcel Bentancourt, Ian Krypo and Ryan Duncan.
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