ALBUQUERQUE — It was a tough afternoon on the court for the St. Michael's boys and girls in Saturday's finals of the Class A-AAA State Team Tennis Championships.

Both squads were swept out of the finals 5-0.

"We knew that we had to be firing on all cylinders to take these guys," Horsemen head boys coach Kevin Skelly.

But after beating Bosque 5-1 in the semifinals, the second-seeded Horsemen had little left for the defending champion and No. 1-seed Albuquerque Sandia Prep.

"We're proud that we made it this far," Skelly said. "We got beat by a better team."

With the Horsemen losing just two seniors from the squad, the players anticipate a return engagement next season.

"At the beginning of the year, we didn't know what our expectations would be," said sophomore Jackson Spingler. "But we kept getting better and we know that we're going to be even better next season."

His head coach agrees.

"We'll be a better team next year," Skelly said. "That's our team motto: 'Get better every year.' "

The top-seeded Lady Horsemen had to scramble through a tough semifinal match against Sandia Prep, surviving 5-3, before meeting No. 2 Bosque in the finale.

But coach Vladmir King refused to use that as an excuse for St. Michael's final-match performance.

"That can't be a factor," he said. "This is the championships. But this has been a long season. We've played a lot of tennis."

Nevertheless, the girls didn't have the same spark in the afternoon as the teams started off with singles. None of the Lady Horsemen were able to extend their matches to three sets.

It's the second straight season
St. Michael's lost in the finals, but the players came away wiser for it.

"We can't come out easy," said top player Paloma Gomez. "We can't think it's going to be an easy match."

The Los Alamos boys, however, are tired of learning lessons in the championship match.

The Hilltoppers, seeded second, reached the title match for the fourth consecutive season and once again had to watch top-seeded Albuquerque Academy celebrate a victory, this one by a 5-0 score.

"We thought this was our year," said senior Kirk Webber. "We've lost to them four years in a row so we're kind of rivals."

Webber, already up one set, was knotted at 5 in set No. 2 against J.R. Lesansee when the Chargers clinched the title with their fifth victory on another court.

"It was a lot of fun," Webber said. "I'm a senior so I just had to fight for everything. J.R.'s also a senior so he was fighting for everything, too."

Los Alamos head coach Giri Raichur took a gamble with his lineup, scrambling it in hopes of snagging a couple of doubles victories that could lead to the team championship. It didn't pan out.

The coach split up his individual state champion doubles squad of Patrick Raichur and Matt Whicker.

"What I was hoping for was to get wins at No. 2 and No. 3 doubles," coach Raichur said. "It came that close to working. If it had worked, it might have been a different result. But once you lose three doubles matches, it's a large hole."

Whicker and Chase Havemann at No. 2 doubles went to a third set before losing it 6-4.

"We could have probably gotten three wins if I didn't split up No. 1 doubles," the coach said. "I tried to turn the tables on them."