The Emmaus girls tennis team qualified two doubles teams for the District 11 doubles tournament at West End Racquet Club this past weekend and both teams picked up very tough draws.

The team of Ciara Bryan and Victoria Chan had to face top seed and eventual champions Jenna Peng and Tuquyen Pham of Parkland in the second round of the tournament. Meanwhile, Katrina Guido and Kelly Nguyen wound up facing the tournament silver medalists, Jess Wain and Ashley Jones from Bangor, in the quarterfinals. Both Emmaus teams came up short, but provided their competition with good matches.

"Both teams played really well together," said coach Kelly Musselman. "Communication is the key in doubles."

Bryan and Chan beat a team from Stroudsburg 6-2, 6-0 before falling to Parkland's top team 6-2, 6-1. Guido and Nguyen downed a team from East Stroudsburg South 6-3, 6-1 in the opening round and then toppled a tandem from East Stroudsburg North 6-0, 6-2 before falling to Bangor 7-6, 6-2 in the third round.

Ironically, it was Peng who beat Guido and Pham who beat Nguyen, both in the second round of the singles competition for districts.

Emmaus finished 11-4 overall and 8-3 in the LVC this season, positioning themselves as one of the year's surprise teams. That standing has them in the District 11 team tournament this week and they could be considered a dark horse team in the competition, coming in as the fifth seeded team. Again, the draw won't be easy, with Emmaus again likely having to go through Parkland to win the tournament and that would be after a tough match with Northampton.

"We worked really hard this season and I know the girls are looking forward to a rematch with Northampton. We are positive, and anything is possible; we look forward to a great match," said Musselman of the tournament.

Any advance in the team tournament would be considered a success for the Emmaus squad. Coming into the season, they weren't highly regarded in the LVC, but that all started to change early on when they beat Freedom in the second match of the season. Musselman points to that match as the one where she first started to realize that something special could happen with her team.

"Freedom is traditionally a good team and we played competitively against them for an exciting win against them," said Musselman.