On September 18, 19 and 20, forty members and guest of SGTC made the annual visit to Casa Via Mar Inn in Port Hueneme for a weekend of tennis, fun, and friendship.  A few tennis players arrived early on Friday afternoon to play some warm-up sets until it got too dark to see the balls or opponents. The rest of the people came in late Friday night or early Saturday morning. Twenty-nine players, divided into groups A and B, competed in the intra-club tournament Saturday morning. Rowena Kousakis and Amber Marsden had the top scores among the women while Steve Gov and George Fu had the best scores for the men. Directing players to their courts and recording the results, Ben Lu and James organized the Saturday morning tournament. Tony Wong made sure that there were sodas, water and fruit to keep players hydrated and sharp. After lunch, Mike Lu organized a quick mini tournament playing ten-point tie-breaks. While we were playing tennis, some other members and guests went off to the Banana Festival being celebrated near-by.

Saturday evening, SGTC held the traditional dinner in the party room at Casa Via Mar. Tony Wong picked up the chicken and sides from KFC and a cake for dinner. After dinner, David Yu taught us an interesting social game called ‘Werewolf.” The villagers barely identified all the werewolves before the werewolves were able to “eat” all the villagers. 

Rowena won first prize in the fifty-fifty raffle; Andrew Huang had the ticket for second prize; and James took third place. SGTC also had a raffle for door prize – a plant plus cash. Allen Tieu, Simon’s brother, had the right ticket for the door prize. We finished the party with a fast-paced round of the “left-right-center” dice game. Alvin Lee rolled the hot dice and took home the money at the larger table while Allen Tieu won enough to cover his gas money at the smaller table.

Sunday morning, a few members played tennis while most of the crowd slept in and relaxed.  By noon, we all checked out from Casa Via Mar and headed home. We are looking forward to next year’s trip to Port Hueneme.