Collin College Women's Tennis scored its first team win of the season last week, followed quickly by its second. The men's team also picked up a 9-0 win in a late-scheduled match.

The women's team defeated St. Petersburgh College 5-4 on Feb. 27, building on the work the team has done throughout the early season. St. Petersburgh is a ranked junior college team out of Florida.

Collin lost 5-4 to Tyler Junior College (TJC), a perennial powerhouse, on Feb. 28. Coach Jamie Nanez said they came close to winning 6-3 but lost focus in a couple of matches. He said the team is still working on recognizing when they can go for the win and capitalizing on it.

"We had our chances, and that's what you want," Nanez said. "Maybe next time those chances will go our way."

Nanez said the team seemed upbeat after the matches, in part because they got to see the competition at the junior college level. Nanez scheduled a number of Division I and II teams early in the season to sharpen the Collin players' skills against the best. He said that even against DI teams, Collin has been competitive.

"While it stings that we haven't gotten the wins we like, we got a lot of experience playing above our weight class," Nanez said. "Now that we are in our weight class, it reminds us that we are good, and we can play with these teams.

"I think that they learned a lot from it. The team that I saw playing St. Pete and the team that I saw playing TJC was a completely different team than the one I saw playing some of those other teams."

The women's team also defeated the University of St. Thomas 6-3 in a match that was not on the college's original spring schedule. St. Thomas, a DIII school in Houston, requested the match and Collin agreed. Nanez said it was another chance to sharpen their skills before heading back to play more DII schools and junior colleges in the coming weeks.

The women's team has five matches in four days starting with a road trip to Arkansas March 7. Nanez expects strong performances in those games despite the pace of the schedule.

"It will be interesting to see how they respond with so many games in a row," Nanez said. "But the national tournament is five days in a row, and the way our team is playing now, I think we have a chance to be playing on day five."

The men's team defeated St. Thomas 9-0 in their March 1 match. Nanez said it was a good match, though he expected Collin to win. The team will face off against TJC in a match this week, and that will show how the team's mettle. After mid-March, the team should know where it stands among its junior college competitors.

"Hopefully the guys see the benefit of the tough matches we've played so far," Nanez said. "Just because our win/loss record isn't what we want, we can still learn. We were competitive against those teams; we just need to learn to play when the pressure is on. You have to rise to the occasion.

"It's been a tough season so far, but I think we can build on this."