Brothers--Antonio and Gian Assante Lead the Way for SD School of Mines Table Tennis Team
Pride, passion, and perseverance, words every athlete aspires to, and are what we bring to the proverbial table when we play our beloved sport in the United States. In just its second competitive season, the South Dakota School of Mines Table Tennis team has achieved something that once seemed like a dream: Rocky Mountain Division Champions and a direct qualification to the West Regional Championships!
Just 3 years ago, table tennis did not even exist at SD School of Mines. Antonio arrived in 2022 to study Mining Engineering and his brother Gian followed in 2023 to study Industrial Engineering. In 2024, they founded the table tennis club, building it from scratch. All of this while balancing demanding STEM degrees.
“This club became a family,” Gian said. “We push each other in sports and in academics. Discipline is everything.”
At the center of this historic run are brothers Antonio and Gian Assante, founders of the program, whose journey from Peru to Panama and eventually to Rapid City is a story of pride, passion and, yes, perseverance! They are Brothers in Arms and in competition too as Antonio and Gian would face each other in the Men's Singles Championships with Gian claiming 1st place and Antonio claiming 2nd place (both direct qualifiers to the West Regional Championships)
As a team it was a championship forged in adversity; juggernauts, University of Colorado, who had generally won the division had just beaten them in the 2nd division tournament and SD Mines Table Tennis thought all was lost.
“I felt like I had failed my team,” Antonio recalled. “We thought we had lost the division. We didn’t even know the tie-break procedures yet.”
But what followed was nothing short of remarkable. After all results were calculated under NCTTA rules, South Dakota Mines emerged as Rocky Mountain Division Champions: their first-ever team title and, more importantly, a trip to the NCTTA postseason!
Antonio and Gian want to push forward a new identity for SD Mines and this is just the start. For Antonio, this is also deeply personal as he is going into his final season as a collegiate table tennis player.
“I started as a scared kid with a paddle. Now I want to fight for that kid, to show him that even if you’re afraid, you still go for it.”
The NCTTA West Regional Championships is one of the most (if not the most) competitive regionals in NCTTA and the Assante brothers are no strangers to challenges. They also want to put everyone on notice that their school is no longer just known for engineering excellence, but also for its competitive table tennis.
South Dakota School of Mines: "That school that plays College Table Tennis"