Irvine Valley's men's tennis team earned a special 5-4 win on the last match of the day at Riverside on Mar. 7 to move into first place in the Orange Empire Conference.
But the Lasers couldn't come up with the same magic on Thursday afternoon at home.
Riverside defeated IVC, 8-1, and it looks like the two teams will end up as co-champions of the conference.
The match finished Irvine Valley's regular season. The Lasers ended with a record of 8-1 overall and 7-1 in conference. RCC improved its conference mark to 5-1. It has matches left to go on Friday against Fullerton and then takes on Orange Coast next Tuesday.
Riverside has already beat those teams this season.
Both Riverside and Irvine Valley should also make the So. Cal. Regional Playoffs. Those pairings will be announced later next week.
Thursday's match started with three tough doubles contests that could have gone either way.
But the Tigers won them all.
Carlos Rullan and Rafael Rullan teamed up to earn a hard fought 8-6 win at No. 1 doubles over IVC's pair of sophomore Devon Kashishian and freshman Alyan Ashraf.
RCC's Emilio Real and Enricco Recchia followed with a 9-7 win of the sophomore Laser pair of Kiichi Ishida and Harold Santana on the second court, while Anaht Bhika and Raphael Delente also won, 9-7, over Irvine Valley's freshmen Rudra Pathak and Sergio Jardas.
In singles action, two of the matches went to three sets, but Ishida lost to Rafa Rullan on the first court and Austin Harvill defeated Pathak in three sets at the No. 6 spot.
Irvine Valley picked up its lone victory of the day from Santana. He defeated Recchia, 6-2, 7-5.
The Lasers will now have basically a week off from competition. They begin play in the OEC Tournament at Saddleback next Thursday.
