GREEN POND - It was a different opponent, but the same daunting task for the Tamaqua girls tennis team.

For the fourth straight year and the fifth time in Jennel Yelito's six seasons as head coach, the Raiders qualified for the District 11 Class AA team tournament.In each of the Raiders' previous district appearances under Yelito, they faced top-seeded Moravian Academy - the six-time defending Class AA team champions.Tuesday afternoon, Tamaqua was once again a huge underdog against a highly-touted Colonial League squad.This time, however, it was second-seeded Notre Dame.While the opponent might have been different, the result was the same as the Crusaders rolled to a 4-1 quarterfinal round victory."We had a really nice season," said Yelito. "We had 10 regular season wins, but we knew that we were facing a very good team in Notre Dame. They had a girl reach the District final in singles and their doubles team played in the district finals as well."Our goal coming in here today was to play our best. I didn't talk about wins or losses. I stressed staying positive and playing with confidence and I thought we did that."One thing Tamaqua accomplished this season that Yelito's four previous District 11 qualifiers failed to do was earn a team point. The No. 1 doubles team of Beth Kistner and Jasmin Mena took care of that with a 7-5, 6-3 sweep of Notre Dame's Danielle Hibshman and Jillian Skerchak."It was really nice to be able to get a win - especially at districts - in my final high school match," said Kistner, one of four seniors on the Tamaqua team. "Although the team lost today, it was still a great season."I enjoyed playing with these girls so much. We were more of a family than a team. Everyone got along so well. It was a really memorable year."Although Notre Dame's powerful singles lineup swept the Raiders, Yelito found bright spots in her players' performance."On a whole, I thought we played well in singles," said Yelito. "The scores might not reflect it, but there were a lot of long rallies and a lot of deuce games in all the matches. Notre Dame just happened to win most of them."Crusader coach Matt Crouse said dominating singles play has been his team's formula for success this season."We didn't know much about Tamaqua, but we are confident that our singles' line-up can play with anyone," said Crouse. "We really rely on them. Between Coco (Chen), Julia (Mowrey) and Emily (Hammel), they had a combined 43-9 regular season record."Tamaqua's Maddie Dolinsky, who fell to Chen, 6-0, 6-0 at No. 1 singles, said despite the season-ending loss, the Raiders have plenty of reasons to be proud."We accomplished our team goal of making it to districts and the seventh seed is the highest a Tamaqua team has been seeded since coach Yelito has been here," said Dolinsky. "Notre Dame is a strong team, but I thought we played hard and did our best and that's all you can ask."Notre Dame (16-3) advances to face Moravian Academy in Thursday's semifinals. Tamaqua finishes its season with a 10-8 record."This team was a pleasure to coach," said Yelito. "We accomplished our goal of making it to districts, but even more importantly, I think our girls grew as tennis players and young women during the season."I know they are going to take a lot of great memories with them from this season."Notre Dame GP 4 Tamaqua 1SINGLESCoco Chen (ND) def. Maddie Dolinsky, 6-0, 6-0; Julia Mowrey (ND) def. Maddie Davis, 6-1, 6-1; Emily Hammel (ND) def. Allison Pedersen, 6-0, 6-1.DOUBLESBeth Kistler/Jasmin Mena ((T) def. Dannielle Hibshman/Jillian Skerchak, 7-5, 6-3; Lydia Yuhas/Emily Farmer (ND) def. Brooke DeHart/Amy Gardiner, 6-1, 6-4.