De Anza College and Chabot College have been dominating women’s tennis in the West Coast Conference League for two years. With no other real competition from other teams in the conference, the two programs have developed a rivalry that, just like their match on April 11, is only sometimes friendly.

Chabot head coach Rick Morris reacted badly to a change in De Anza’s order of players during the match. He confronted De Anza players Alison Decaro who had been moved from the number four position to number five.

“He came up to me and asked me why I wasn’t playing at the four spot and if I could even beat his forth best player,” said Decaro. “He thought we were stacking.”

Normally, same ranked players play against each other. Stacking is a form of cheating during tennis matches and occurs when the worst player on the team, number six, plays the number one, shifting the other players down a spot. This shift forfeits an individual’s match but gives an advantage to the other six, providing an unfair edge. The accusation came when Decaro was moved down from her number four spot due to poor play.

“It wasn’t a classy thing to do, to come up to a player like that,” DeCaro said.

Ron Ward, De Anza’s head coach, challenged Morris about the incident with DeCaro, leading to a confrontation between the two men.

“He’s a good coach. He works hard and he just wants to win,” Ward said. “We’ve had our issues over the years, nothing that we haven’t gotten over. We may not get over this. I don’t know.”

Coach Rick Morris of Chabot was unavailable for comment.

Overall, the present matches between De Anza and Chabot are spotlights on their respective schedules, with some players looking forward to the great level of play and the fun of competition. After De Anza’s number one player Kunkanda “Cartoon” Phukchampa and Chabot’s number one player Ana Wilson battled during singles’ matches, they were friendly conversing after the match.

“I’ve played at De Anza a few times, and I like the competition,” Wilson said. “The competition is pretty intense on court during the game, but after there is no tension. It’s all left on the court. These girls are really friendly and really good competitors.”

Most of the De Anza players echoed this sentiment, realizing that while Chabot may be their number one competition, they can still respect them.

“It’s always good competition and a good edge when we play them,” said Samantha Lam, De Anza’s number three player. “It’s fun to play against Chabot.”

Even though De Anza currently has the upper hand in the rivalry after beating Chabot 6-3 March 29 on the road and 7-2 on April 11, the ultimate goal of winning the state finals is what is important to them.

“Our goal is to win state,” Ward said. “We are probably second or third in the state, playing wise, and those other teams are beatable. The girls just need to come out and play one good match, two good games.”

The road to the state championship will undoubtedly run through Chabot.