The time has come for the men’s tennis team to kick off its season.

This year’s team is mostly made up of the new recruits, which Cerritos’ coaching staff worked hard to find.

The Falcons will start their season Thursday, Jan. 28th against Mt. San Jacinto.

Head coach Alvin Kim said, “We were so close I feel last season [in] trying to get to state finals.”

Last season, Agustin Lombardi was apart of a duo who went onto be named the Conference Doubles Champions.

“We’re traditionally a doubles driven offense historically we have more championships in doubles,” Kim said.

Lombardi expressed he’s looking forward to playing the top teams in the state.

“This season I’m looking forward to trying to beat the top teams, last year we had an okay season,” Lombardi explained. 

With being named Conference Champions, Lombardi felt like he could have done better, “Basically, because we could have done better, we lost a couple of matches that were very important, we lost by a couple of inches, if we were a little bit more focused we could have won.”

Freshman Oleksandr Krasnev is just looking forward to the competition.

“I’m looking forward to competing for state and playing in tournaments,” he said.

Krasnev also said he’s excited because of his team and its potential.

“I think we have a really good team this season and we have all chances to win at state, we just need to work hard and focus on our game.”

Both Lombardi and Krasnev said they are ready for the season to start.

Lombardi added that he has improved during the off season.

Lastly, both Krasnev and Lombardi have teams they are looking forward to playing.

Krasnev wants to play the Ventura Pirates while Lombardi just wants to play the reigning state champion Irvine Valley Lasers.