The Gamecock Table Tennis Club team is in its first year on campus, and it is progressing rapidly in both size and skill despite being born in what has been deemed an unprecedented time.
It was founded for members to get together and have fun while getting better at the sport they share an interest in.
The approximately 40 members practice and compete every Monday in Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center on the first floor. COVID-19 restrictions are all the club has known, but when they are lifted, it plans to go out and test its skills against other schools.
Under social distancing guidelines, members have only been able to focus on singles play, but this has given them a chance to make the most of the difficult circumstances.
“During the first semester, we couldn’t play doubles, so it was really just singles,” Gus Mounts, second-year middle education student, said.
Club president and founder Andrew Nguyen, a second-year pharmaceutical science student, said college table tennis has competitive and non-competitive sides.
The competitive side is under the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association, where the best college table tennis teams in the nation play against each other in highly competitive matches.
The non-competitive side is what the South Carolina club table tennis is more involved with now. The training that members are currently doing is meant to prepare them for when broader traveling for competitions is allowed.
According to Nguyen, the club's closest rivals will be Clemson and UGA.
"I bet a lot of Clemson’s players, they are solid competition,” Nguyen said.
Nguyen said he hopes to take the South Carolina program to that level, but since it is in its first year, the club is focusing on building itself up right now.
According to Kyle Furfaro, a first-year statistics student, the team is full of healthy competition where everyone is getting better by playing against each other.
Mounts said the level of player competitiveness within the Gamecock club is a wide spectrum.
“You know, I beat Gus a couple times, and that was, that had to be the highlight right there because that doesn’t happen very often,” Furfaro said.
He also said the club has monthly tournaments, so everyone that joins will have a chance to compete against other members.
This club is both for the people who want to play every single day and for those who want to have a fun Monday night practice every week. There is even a group chat for the team, where people consistently ask to play outside of practice, Mounts said.
Nguyen said no prior experience is necessary to join club table tennis, as it is open to anyone who would like to get involved.
“I think I’ve met one person here that plays legitimately,” Nguyen said.
For students looking to join Club Table Tennis, it posts updates on Instagram (@gamecocktabletennisclub). You can find it on the first floor in the Strom Thurmond Fitness and Wellness Center at 7 p.m. every Monday.