The Pierce College tennis team lost their match in Ventura with a final score of 5-4 on Tuesday.
The game was close the entire way through. Even the very first match of the day, played by Pierce student Moises Cardenas and Ventura student Jonathan Lin, resulted in a tiebreaker. Pierce eventually won this first match with a score of 10-8.
The game was only lost due to a call made by referee David Oltman according to tennis coach Rajeev Datt.
Oltman claimed that the ball had hit the body of one of Pierce’s players as opposed to his racket.
Datt adamantly disagrees with the ruling.
“The ref that was there made an atrocious call it cost us that match,” Datt said, “I’m going after his job.”
The call was made against player Eduardo Garcia during the final doubles match.
Garcia agreed with Datt that Oltman made a poor call.
“That was the last match,” Garcia said. “He hit me in the frame of the racket, not on my body.”
According to Garcia’s doubles partner, Gofur Sirojidinov, “The referee says he didn’t see it.”
“There was no welt, I made him take his shirt off, I got video on my iPhone we got robbed big time,” Datt said. “They played their hearts out.”
He’s certain that his team would have won the game had Oltman not made that call.
The team’s next games will be held in Ventura on April 13 and 14.
These games will be for the Western State Conference tournament, or WSC tournament. The times of the games have yet to be announced.
