The Salisbury girls tennis team recently capped a successful regular season. League victories over Notre Dame (Green Pond) on back-to-back days brought Salisbury’s Colonial League record to 11-5. To put that into perspective, that was three wins less than the prior three years combined.

But the Lady Falcons’ success didn’t stop when the regular season ended. When last week’s Colonial League flighted tournament completed, Salisbury saw a number of its players finish among the top.

Senior Leandra Roelker led the way as she won the No. 1 singles tournament, winning all three of her matches in convincing fashion. Claudia Crouthamel finished in second place at No. 2 singles among the nine participants, and her sister Lil Crouthamel also came in second in her No. 3 singles bracket last Wednesday at Saucon Valley High School.

“It was a really good draw and I had some great points with all of the girls I played,” Roelker said. “Of course there were nerves in the beginning, but they faded pretty quickly.”

Roelker breezed through her first two matches. The first was an 8-0 victory over Palisades’ Claire Olmstead. Shortly after she defeated Southern Lehigh’s Danielle Barnes by an 8-2 score. That set up a championship match against Moravian Academy’s Skyler Hammond, the No. 3 seed, whom Roelker had beaten twice in the regular season and split with back in 2015.

But much like her first two matches, Roelker had little trouble against Hammond. Roelker took the match 8-2 to secure the championship and make it three-for-three against her good friend.

“It was amazing to be able to play in the finals, in such a big match, against one of my really good friends,” Roelker said. “To even get that far was crazy to even imagine. I had to really work on constructing a point against Skyler, and she could handle the pace on the ball, so it wasn’t easy.”

The result was a 180-degree turnaround from last year when she lost in the first match of the tournament.

“My goal was to win the tournament,” Roelker said. “Last year I wasn’t able to make it past the first round, so that was a pretty lofty goal. But I trained as hard as I could this past year, so this was the time to make my training count.”

Claudia Crouthamel’s road to her championship match was very much different than Roelker’s. Due to a sickness at the beginning of the year that resulted in her missing two weeks, Crouthamel wasn’t sure what to expect this season. She didn’t even know if playing tennis would be an option in 2016.

But she steadily worked her way back, first playing doubles, then moving into the No. 3 singles slot, and finally moving back to her normal position at No. 2. It all came full-circle in the league tournament.

Crouthamel, the No. 4 seed, first defeated Bangor’s Jennifer LaBar (8-2) in the quarterfinals, followed by a 9-7 victory over Moravian Academy’s Neelam Ferrari in the semifinals, 9-7. Ferrari was the No. 1 seed in No. 2 singles.

“Starting the match Neelam had a big lead…I think I was down 5-2,” Crouthamel said. “I won a few points and that really gave me the confidence, allowed me to stay focused, and in the end it worked out. I really had nothing to lose playing this match, and I feel like that gave me the motivation to keep going and not give up.”

Crouthamel faced Neelam once in the regular season. That one was also decided in a tiebreaker, but that time the Moravian player wound up victorious.

Southern Lehigh’s Kelly Asselin then ended Crouthamel’s run in the finals round, 8-3.

“I let the nerves get to me, and I didn’t play as well as I would have liked to,” Crouthamel said. “But I was still happy that I made it to the final round.”

Lil Crouthamel, the No. 3 seed at No. 3 singles, defeated Saucon Valley’s Wakana Nakajima (8-4) in the quarterfinals and Southern Lehigh’s Keelin McLoughlin (8-2) in the semifinals.

Salisbury’s two doubles tandems had successful outings as well to begin its preseason schedule. At No. 1 doubles, Vivian Rogers and Anna Bishop, the No. 6 seed, defeated Southern Lehigh’s duo in its first match. Sydney Kramer and Katie Denver played at No. 2 doubles and came up short in their first match.

“It was a good senior year, and I feel like our team did a lot of amazing things,” Crouthamel said. “My freshman year there were only a handful of girls on the team, and we only won one match. The team has come so far and I couldn’t be prouder.”