Women’s tennis preview: Learning experience for OCC

Tony Altobelli

COSTA MESA - With experience at a minimum, the Orange Coast College

women’s tennis team will simply take the 2000 season one match at a time.

“We’re very young, that’s for sure,” Coach Janice Maran said. “We need to

get some matches under our belt. You can’t replace experience and that’s

what we’re lacking.”

With six freshmen players and only one sophomore, this year is filled

with unanswered questions. One thing’s for sure: athleticism will not be

a problem.

“We definitely can hit the ball well,” Maran said. “We have some very

athletic players. We’ll just have to find out how they handle playing

under the conference pressure.”

The Pirates’ lone returner from last year’s second-place squad is

sophomore Shannon Gibson (Newport Harbor High), who was a No. 4 singles

player for Maran’s team.

Another player that has stayed local is freshman Jessica Andrus (Newport

Harbor).

Look for an international flavor from OCC this year with freshmen Lat

Keijzer (Amsterdam, Holland) and Kaori Nagashima (Yokosuka, Japan).

Looking at the Orange Empire Conference picture, Maran feels that

defending champ Irvine Valley as well as Saddleback look to be the

favorites going in.

“IVC has a bunch of returners and Saddleback is always tough to beat,”

Maran said. “It’ll be tough in or conference, just like it always is,

especially for our young group.”

COMMUNITY COLLEGE WOMEN

OCC TENNIS OUTLOOK

The Pirates

Lot Keijzer Fr.

Erica Goode Fr.

Sondra McNamara Fr.

Merin Yoshida Fr.

Shannon Gibson So.

Jessica Andrus Fr.

Kaori Nagashima Fr.