The San Francisco International Stand-up Comedy competition where the preliminary round of the laugh fest was held at Sacramento State’s University Union Thursday. In this round, 15 comedians threw their comedy punches for a chance to make to the next round.

Two comedians stood out among their competitors and made it in the top five: Manolis Zontanos and Eric Clark.

Manolis Zontanos, who tied for fifth place, used his used material from women rights to sex to capture applauds from the audience. “(Zontanos) was very original? I liked his style. He kept me laughing the whole time he was on stage,” said senior marketing major Jenny Ahmu.

Zontanos said he likes this tour because he gets to bond and get tips from the other comedians on the tour with him as they travel from town to town with each other.

Zontanos said he does a lot of his touring in Canada, where he is originally from.

He has a comedy show coming up Oct. 7 called “Comedy Network presents: Manolis Zontanos” on the Comedy Network.

“I liked performing here because the crowd was so receptive,” said Zontanos.

“I like working with younger crowds because they are much more involved in my jokes then the older folks,” he said.

He has performed in cities such as New York City, The Comedy and Magic club in Hermosa Beach and recently performed at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood, where comedians like Jim Carrey and Dave Chappelle started their careers.

Zontanos feels that his big break will be his comedy show where he will get publicity being on Comedy Central.

Eric Clark, who took second place in the preliminaries, used his jokes about the dating scene and the R&B singer Akon to get the crowd laughing and cheering.

Clark said the whole nine to five work day was not for him.

“I see my friends working in a desk job setting, and I was like: ‘that is not for me,'” Clark said. “I want to do something that I love to do and that is making people laugh.”

Clark has done shows at Sacramento’s Punch Line also. He has toured countries such as Tokyo, London, Amsterdam and Korea. Clark said Korea was one of his favorite places to perform. Clark said he feels he connected with the crowd and the audience was feeling all of his jokes he was rolling with.

“I liked his style because it did not seem that he cared what the audience was going to think about his jokes because he was confident,” said criminal justice major Koji Jitosho.

Growing up, Clark said he always felt that it was easy for him to make people laugh, so he rolled with it. Every show he goes and travels to he likes to improve and gain more material, he said.

Reading comic books and watching cartoons eases him up before shows, so he can go out and give the audience a good laugh.

Clark said the sky is the limit for his career in comedy.

“As long as I keep people laughing, that is all I need to keep going,” Clark said. “I feed off that. Literally.”

David Green can be reached at [email protected].