For the second consecutive season, the Rattlers again
finished runners-up in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) Tennis
Championship. FAMU fell 4-2 to the South Carolina State Bulldogs.
Head Coach Carl Goodman felt the time and circumstance was
right for the team, but bad breaks at the wrong time thwarted the effort.
“The effort was there.
One of our biggest achilles heels was closing out. There was one particular position that we had
the opportunity to close out and we didn’t.
That pressure adds up and we didn’t handle it well,” Goodman said.
The Rattlers also lost to the Bulldogs to finish second in
the conference back in 2012.
“It’s a heartbreaker not winning this tournament,” said
Salif Kante, two-time MEAC Player of the Year. “We
were ready for it, but we just didn’t get it done.”
But despite the disappointment, Goodman remains optimistic
about the future.
“Our goal is to reload not rebuild. We’ve got a couple of young guys on the team
that are good and energetic. We’ll get
that Rattler tradition and spirit instilled in them and we’ll be ready to compete. This was a hard loss, but we’ll be back,”
Goodman concluded.