The Lewis-Clark State College men’s tennis team swept a pair of 9-0 victories over Whitworth University to kick off its season.

Freshmen Victor Gracia shows his best game game winning both singles and double games last Saturday January 23th.

NORFOLK, Va. -- The ODU men's tennis team took the court today for the first time in the spring season, dropping the George Washington University Colonials, 6-1.

Rookie Albert Ochagavia shined in his Monarch debut, winning in straight sets at No. 5 singles and clinching the doubles point for Old Dominion in the No. 3 slot with fellow freshman Alfredo Rodriguez. Ochagavia won 6-3, 6-2 over Yan Levinski in singles action.

"We were very happy with how we competed today," said assistant coach Dominic Manilla. "George Washington is a very tough team and we were really able to take it to them today with great energy and focus. We had great performances from our veteran players and it was exciting to see Ocha (Albert Ochagavia) really step up big in his first match as a Monarch. We are looking forward to him being a key part of our very deep team."

 Julia Comas, the 5-11 freshman from Barcelona, wasted no time in making an impact on the Massachusetts tennis team this fall.

In the team's first official match of the season versus Holy Cross, Comas was absolutely dominant. She joined with last year's Atlantic-10 Most Outstanding Rookie Magdalena Ploch to win a perfect 8-0 doubles victory. She then defeated her opponent in her singles match in two straight sets, 6-0, 6-0.

 Guillermo Gomez enters the spring tennis season ranked No. 4 in the nation in rankings recently released by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. It is the highest singles ranking ever held by a Tech men's player. "Guillermo has done an incredible job of wanting to work on areas [of his game] and not being afraid to change things that make a difference," said head coach Kenny Thorne. "He went from not ranked as a freshman to getting up to the 50's, and he was not happy. He wanted to change some things in order to get to that next level. He improved to 11th, and was not happy with where he finished last spring. He's constantly inquiring about what else he can do with his game. His mindset is that you win or don't win, either you're No. 1 or you're not. That keeps him motivated to improve things an correct things that aren't quite there."

Gomez earned ITA All-America honors last spring after going 29-10 in singles, and also made the All-Atlantic Coast Conference team. He was named ACC Freshman of the Year in 2008 after going 27-12 in singles. He has a 69-24 singles record in his career, and needs seven more wins to move into Tech's all-time top 10. Thorne, his coach, owns the career record with 112 from 1985-88, and Bryan Shelton, Tech's women's coach, is second with 101.