SBCC freshmen Miles Seemann and Joshua Crisp-Jones battled late into the night on Friday and pulled out two wins to reach the doubles semifinals of the State Men’s Championships at the Balboa Tennis Club in San Diego.
Seemann/Crisp-Jones, seeded No. 4 in the South, started their Round of 16 match after 7 p.m. They outlasted James Kong-Ramon Martinez of Foothill 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (0).
“It came down to our mentality and our energy level at the end,” said coach Ryan Heinberg. “We were perfect (7-0) in the tiebreaker.”
The quarterfinal match followed at 10 p.m. on Friday and the SBCC duo knocked out the No. 1 seed from the South, Parker Kelley and Josh Banks of College of the Desert, 6-1, 6-2. The match ended around 11:30 p.m. The victory avenged a 3-set loss to Kelley-Banks in the semifinals of last weekend’s Southern Cal Regional.
Seemann/Crisp-Jones are the top remaining seed in men’s doubles. They’ll take on Andre Almeida-Christian Fischer of Fresno City (#6 North) on Saturday at 4 p.m. Fresno won the State team title on Thursday.
SBCC is the only school with a men’s and women’s team in the doubles semifinal. Sophie Angner-Talia Hudson won two matches on Friday to move into the women’s semifinal.
Seemann, who captured the Regional title last Saturday, was the fifth seed from the South in singles. He swept past Sam Bertram of Fresno City 6-0, 6-2 before falling to Alex Johnson of Foothill 4-6, 6-3, 6-2. Johnson was the top seed from the North.
“Miles had the No. 1 seed quite nervous,” said Heinberg. “He did a great job of combating Johnson’s power game.”
Crisp-Jones, a freshman from England, was seeded fourth in the South. He dropped a three-setter to Tobias Galskov of Foothill (#5 North) 6-1, 2-6, 6-2 in the Round of 16.
