Ithaca College Men's Tennis: Lorenzo Viguie-Ramos Feature

Key Points

• Viguie-Ramos is the only senior on this year's team

• His leadership has led the team to playoffs

• He’s close to reaching 100 career wins

Leadership

Being the only veteran leader on an amateur sports team can be difficult, just ask the only senior on this year's Ithaca College men's tennis team, Lorenzo Viguie-Ramos. You have to be dependable, consistent, and most importantly levelheaded. So far this season, Viguie-Ramos has exceeded expectations, leading the men's tennis team to the playoffs and the top of the Liberty League.

"I had a lot of expectations on myself entering the season. For the most part, I think I've led the team well enough, I mean we are headed to the playoffs," said Viguie-Ramos.

The Bombers held an impressive 3-2 record in the Liberty League to start the week, which seemed unlikely entering the season, seeing as this year is their first year in the new Liberty League. However, Ithaca has exceeded expectations to start the season, pulling of an impressive 8-1 win over RIT last Wednesday, which turned into the team's best performances of the season.

"We really fought hard, man," said Viguie-Ramos. "Even though I didn't play too well myself, I thought we did an incredible job at not getting too low. We fell behind in some of our match-ups early, but we really fought back, and in the end, fortunately we came out on top."

Seniors and sophomores encompassed most of the roster last year. However, this year's team is made up of five juniors, five sophomores, one freshman, and only one senior, Viguie-Ramos. As the only senior, Viguie-Ramos was expected to lead from the get-go.

"Coach Austin helped me along to start the season," said Viguie-Ramos. "But once we got going, I really took the lead. I saw our roster was young and relatively inexperienced and I saw an opportunity to teach these young guys what collegiate tennis is all about."

Career In Reflection

After sitting on the bench for most of his freshman year, Viguie-Ramos stormed through the competition during his sophomore campaign, quickly earning an integral role at the top the Bomber's roster. Viguie-Ramos posted an impressive 13-5 record in singles and earned an Empire 8 All-Conference Honorable Mention selection.

"Sophomore year helped me gain confidence in singles, which was important for my development," said Viguie-Ramos. "I matured really quickly."

In high school, Viguie-Ramos was voted Most Valuable Player two straight years at Nyack High School in New York. As their star player, the spotlight seemed to always fall on him. However, collegiate tennis permanently changed the senior's perspective on tennis.

"One thing I've been trying to convey to all the freshman and sophomores is tennis isn't an individual sport in college," said Viguie-Ramos. "You have teammates there to help you win. If you lose, the team can still win.

After four years on South Hill, Viguie-Ramos is close to 100 career wins, which would be an extremely striking accomplishment considering only an impressive few have achieved that milestone at Ithaca College.

Career After College

Viguie-Ramos excels as a business administration majors at Ithaca College. He's currently interviewing for positions in New York City, Boston, as well as other places around the country.

As graduation approaches and the tennis season wines down, Viguie-Ramos will look to the future and reflect on some of the most important lessons learned and taught on the tennis court.

"I hope to use some of the knowledge I gained on the tennis court in the future," said Viguie-Ramos. "I'm really excited to move on and graduate, but I'm really going to miss the people here, man. I've learned so much, I can't wait to give back to this school and community."

I would like to thank Caitie Ihrig of The Ithacan for all of the pictures included in this article, as well as the video. You can follow her instagram here or look through her photography here, on here website.

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