Coach: Team beginning to understand what it must do
The USC men's tennis team will take a break from conference action today when it hosts VCU in the first of three consecutive home matches.
The Gamecocks played three matches away from Columbia over spring break, sweeping The Citadel 7-0 before taking conference losses at Auburn and Alabama.
USC won two of three doubles matches against The Citadel and dominated in singles despite the fact that Ivan Machado and Chip Cox, two of the team's top players, were not in the singles lineup.
Freshman Jake Bowling and junior Henry Walker had a chance to play instead, and they came through with victories in No. 5 and No. 6 singles, respectively.
Against No. 26 Auburn, Cox provided the Gamecocks' lone point with his eighth win of the season. The team played well in doubles despite narrowly losing all three matches. Machado and Nick Jones extended their match at No. 1 doubles to a tiebreaker set before falling to Tim Puetz and Daniel Cochrane, the No. 43 pair in the nation.
No. 35 Alabama swept the Gamecocks 7-0, but a bright spot in the match came in second doubles, where Cox teamed with Alexander Kostanov to pull out a 7-6 victory. Their opponents, Vikram Reddy and Michael Thompson, are the No. 62 pair in the nation. Cox and Kostanov improved to 3-2 on the year with the win.
"At Auburn, the guys competed extremely well," coach Josh Goffi said. "The scores didn't say so, but it was an extremely tight match. We were in position to win in four of those matches. I was impressed. Auburn is a very good team, and we were right there with them. To me, it's actually one of the better matches we've played.
"Against Alabama, I think the guys were a little bit down. I wouldn't say they were tired; they were just a little bit down that they had lost to Auburn. Alabama played a very good match. Overall the schedule has been, I think, perfect for us. It's tough, but it's nothing excruciating."
VCU comes to Columbia as the winner of seven straight, most recently a 6-0 defeat of South Alabama. The Rams were so dominant that every one of the matches was decided in two sets.
The Gamecocks will focus on bringing energy and effort to today's matchup and hope that a win will result.
"There's no numbers on what we're trying to do this year," Goffi said. "It's 100 percent trying to develop the culture that we would like for our recruitment class that comes next year.
"This whole year has just been about getting the guys to a point where they understand how things are supposed to be run at a top program, what practices are supposed to be like, what games are supposed to be like. And we're getting that."