HELLERTOWN - There are many unique traits of this year's Lehighton boys tennis program. It was the first time that the Indians qualified for team district playoffs in school history.

Lehighton traveled to second-seeded Saucon Valley yesterday to square off in the District 11 team playoffs, where its impressive 2015 season came to a close. The Panthers were solid across the board and swept Lehighton, 5-0."I'm happy for the kids," said Lehighton head tennis coach Dave Sherry. "They come out in the summers and play. Our depth is getting better and better. This team (Saucon) gets a lot of winter play, is deep, and gets a lot of instructions on the side. Even though it was (5-0), I'm proud of the kids."What else is unique about Sherry's squad?Lehighton has no girls team, so Emily Cerimele and Andrea Schafer have teamed up in doubles this year and have been quite successful. Unfortunately, the girls came up short against Saucon's number two doubles tandem of Aaron Gardner and Ken Graetedt, 6-0, 6-1.Sherry said, "They did great this year and helped us win a ton of matches. They had a tough match up today; their opponents were tall and big at the net. All in all, I think they only lost one or two regular season matches together. They've been great all year. You don't see many girls playing at the boys' district tournament."Tegan Durishin battled well against the Panthers' number one player Srini Laliwala, but came up short, 6-2, 6-0."Tegan (Durishin) is playing very, very well," explained the Lehighton coach. "Even though wrestling is his main sport he improved very nicely. You can see that Josh (Knappenberger) was right there, and Tegan hung in there in the first set. We definitely hung in there against the second-seeded team in the district.Andrea Schafer is another one who improved nicely. Everyone has improved since day one when we were missing serves and could hardly do anything. To see where we are now is so great."Knappenberger's number three singles match against Michael Vidal was the most competitive of the day as it ended after a tiebreaker. Vidal defeated Knappenberger, 8-7, 7-3."He was definitely stronger server than me," explained Knappenberger. "I was able to hit the balls back pretty well though. I was consistent with that and it seemed to help me. Tegan (Durishin) has been serving to me and I've been practicing my returns with him this year."I'm glad to be apart of this team. Being the first team to make it this far is pretty awesome. I wanted to be over .500 as a team and personally do better than last year and I achieved both of those goals. We're really competitive at practices and we're such good friends off of the court. "Before the season, Sherry shared the same goal as Knappenberger of achieving at least a .500 record.I expect that we'll get back here again next year. We're only losing about three players, and the experience is great," Sherry explained. "We're a small school and we don't have tennis at the school itself. The kids have to come out to the club to play and that's a bit of a disadvantage in terms of getting kids interested. I think we're doing just fine.""I love that they will be playing tennis their whole lives. I'm a pro at a club for 36 years and have coached for 30. When I see parents that I've taught bring their kids to learn the game, it feels great. Golf and tennis are two sports that you can play for the rest of your life. I'm very happy with our situation at Lehighton."Saucon Valley 5, Lehighton 0SINGLESSrini Laliwala (SV) def. Tegan Durishin 6-2, 6-0; David Mason (SV) def. Spence David 6-2, 6-1; Michael Vidal (SV) def. Josh Knappenberger 8-7, 7-3.DOUBLESChris Thompson/Adam Prager (SV) def. Thomas Phelan/Mike Pados 6-1, 6-0; Aaron Gardiner/Ken Graetedt (SV) def. Emily Cerimele/Andrea Schafer 6-0, 6-1.