LOS ANGELES - Vincent Nguyen and Sam Ling continued their strong play Friday at the 53rd Annual Southern California Intercollegiate Championships, as both knocked off Division I opponents to advance to the semifinal round of the singles qualifying back draw.

"As the two co-captains on our team, I'm really proud of the way they played today," UCSD head coach Eric Steidlmayer said. "They have even tougher opponents Saturday so I'm excited to see how they perform."

Nguyen, a junior out of San Jose, Calif., topped UC Santa Barbara's Josh Finkelstein, taking the first set in a tiebreaker 7-6 and then winning the second set a little easier, 6-3. Last season Finkelstein played mostly at the No. 3 and No. 4 positions for the Gauchos and recorded an overall record of 18-5.

Facing Zac Tsai of UC Irvine, Ling, a sophomore from Los Altos, Calif., lost the first set 6-2 but came back to win both the second one 6-3 and the ensuing tiebreaker 10-4. Tsai recorded a 10-12 mark this past spring for the Anteaters while playing mostly out of the No. 5 and No. 6 singles positions.

On Saturday Ling will challenge Quoc Doan of UC Riverside while Nguyen is set to face Janosch Apelt of Azusa Pacific. Both matches will begin at 11 a.m. Shortly after, the winners of the semifinal round will challenge each other shortly at 1:30 p.m.

Also on the Tritons' squad, Jake Fellow and Alex Placek competed in the back part of the main draw Friday. Fellow lost a hard-fought match to Pepperdine's Sebastian Fanselow, 7-6, 6-1, and Placek was clipped in a contest decided on a tiebreaker, 6-7, 6-0 (10-5).