Liberty’s boys tennis team were silver medalists in the District XI Class 3A Team Tennis Championships while Parkland captured the gold by a score of 3-1 on Friday at Northwood Racquet Club.

It was the fourth straight time the ‘Canes reached the district final, and this year, it was a tiebreak of sorts because Liberty and Parkland were regular season co-champions and East Penn Conference co-champions.

“We played the best tennis we could play, and I’m thankful for that,” said Liberty head coach Chris Conrad. “Parkland was tougher than I thought they would be. Parkland was playing out of their minds.”

At one singles, Liberty’s Anthony Ronca won his match against Josh Thomas, 6-0, 6-2, and Shayaan Farhad, Liberty’s two singles player, was on his way to winning against Dan Zolotarev, 6-4, 4-3. That match did not finish because Parkland won the team title before two singles was completed.

“I worked a lot with Anthony and Shayaan, not on in-match strategy, but strategy in practices that would translate into matches,” Conrad said. “They played exceedingly well.”

At three singles, Liberty’s Wyatt Marshall lost to Fyodor D’Souza, 3-6, 1-6.

Parkland’s senior-heavy doubles teams topped Liberty’s underclassmen.

Roman Farhad and Sid Tekumalla lost to Ankit Lenka and Lucas Lee, 6-7 (3-7), 1-6, at one doubles.

“I was flipping between courts, but I stayed with one doubles toward the end of that first set,” Conrad said. “We were confident at the net but hit some back from the baseline. We were playing defense in the tiebreak.”

At two doubles, Luke Appleman and Gavin Evans-Gartley lost to Mridul Gupta and Josh Jaffe, 2-6, 0-6.

“What we did really great was focusing, not on the result, but on how to get it. We lost our top two players (to graduation last year), and that’s never easy to come back from,” said Conrad. “They deserve all the accolades because of the work they put in. They were constantly on the court and doing that on their own. We’re not a country club team. It was good to see that competitiveness, just playing tennis.”