n Spanish, La Jolla means “the jewel.”
When the San Diego State men’s tennis doubles team traveled north to La Jolla to play in the Pacific Coast Doubles, it didn’t expect to find a pair of jewels of its own.
SDSU’s dynamic duo of Alexander Waske and Frank Morgan (ranked No. 20 in nation) were expected to do well, but it was the team of Nguey Lay and Steve Adamson that played like gold over the weekend.
Lay and Adamson shocked some people by making it all the way to the quarterfinals in one of the country’s most prestigious tennis tournaments.
Lay and Adamson had a tough draw from the beginning when they faced UC Berkeley’s Erik Dmytruk and Minh Le. The pair had to pull off an upset to get past the first round.
It looked like it wasn’t going to happen when they lost the first set, 3-6. Then Lay and Adamson showed poise and skill winning the second set, 6-2. The third set went back and forth until the Aztecs prevailed, 6-4. The tandem played with the determination to win. A little luck helped as well.
“We got lucky,” Lay said. “The first match is the toughest, but if you win, you could go on a roll.”
That is exactly what they did. They dispensed of their second-round opponents from the College of the Desert (junior college) by the score of 6-2, 7-5. They followed that up with a victory over Notre Dame’s Freeman and Rothschild, 6-1, 6-4.
Unfortunately, Lay and Adamson’s great run ended in the quarterfinals against the No. 2 seed, Stanford’s Paul Goldstein and Ryan Wolters, 6-7, 5-7, 1-6. Even in defeat, the pair played a tremendous match. They took one of the top teams in the nation to a tie-breaker in the first set.
The Aztecs made no excuses for losing their match.
“It was a good tournament,” Adamson said. “Our opponents played real well. It’s good to play against that caliber and know we’re right up there with them.”
Lay seemed to credit everyone but himself.
“Goldstein has an unbelievable return,” Lay said. “It was tough to lose, but we made it pretty far. My partner, Steve, was excellent all weekend. Our coaches did an excellent job of preparing us for this tournament.”
Other SDSU players that participated in the tournament were the teams of Waske/Morgan, Kolo Green-Rosenthal/Doug Young and Bobby Hrdina/Stefan Khudic.
Waske and Morgan played in the Open Round of Sixteen and defeated Stanford’s Geof Abrahms and Charles Hoeveler. After defeating an independent team, they lost to UCLA’s top team of Chris Sands and Vince Allegre, 7-6, 4-6, 6-2.
Goldstein and Wolters seemed to haunt the Aztecs throughout the tournament. They also beat Rosenthal and Young in the first round, 6-4, 7-6. SDSU’s Khudic filled in for an injured Erik Faulk, but it wasn’t enough. Khudic and Hrdina won their first match against William and Mary’s Trevor Csontos and Alex Soeters, 6-3, 6-1, 6-0, then fell to California’s Nathan Jackmon and Bobby Mahal, 3-6, 6-1, 6-0.
Overall, coach John Nelson was pleased with his squad’s performance.
“Nguey and Steve had a real good tournament,” Nelson said. “Frank and Alex were solid. Doug and Kolo were right there. It was a great opportunity to learn and practice.”
The Pacific Coast Doubles Tournament also provided the Aztecs with a couple of jollas for them to take home.
