Liberty’s boys tennis team eats, breathes, and sleeps constant competition, and for the third consecutive year, the Hurricanes displayed that motto when they were crowned District XI Class 3A team tennis champions on May 2 after defeating Emmaus, 4-0, at Lehigh University.

“We’ve modified our practices to keep competition live, and active, and make sure they’re engaged, and I think that plays a very large role in their success as well,” said Liberty coach Chris Conrad. “ It’s definitely something we work toward every year, being as competitive as possible. It’s great to see our entire program flourish.”

After winning the district semifinal against Nazareth, 5-0, the top-seeded Hurricanes were primed to register another shutout, this time against the third-seeded Hornets, who defeated Parkland in their semifinal.

On Thursday afternoon, the first match to finish was at No. 3 singles where David Broczkowski dominated, 6-0, 6-0, over Caleb Brown.

“I think that I employed directionals and keeping balls back behind the service line so that coming up to the net wasn’t an option,” Broczkowski said. “His serve was very good, and I’m impressed by his athletic ability. Coming in as a freshman, he’s playing very solidly.”

Next to finish was the No. 1 doubles match won by Elijah Quan and Caden Vermuelen, 6-3, 6-3, over Ben Fletcher and Quinn Durkin.

Vermuelen was a last-minute substitute for Leo Babbin, who was nursing a hamstring injury that intensified throughout the week, prompting a late-night practice session for the new doubles pair with Coach Conrad the night before the district final.

At No. 2 doubles, Connor Ohl and Finn Brown topped Ayden Kegley and Caleb Brashear, 6-3, 6-2, to clinch the team championship despite the fact that two singles matches were still being played.

Generally, the match is stopped at that point, but because the singles players were in heated battle, it was agreed that they be allowed to continue.

“It was nice of them,” said Liberty’s No. 1 singles player Luke Appleman. “Obviously, I was happy my team won already, but I wanted to beat [Nick Stone].”

Appleman won the first set, 6-0, and then forced a tiebreaker in the second set after Stone failed to return a hard shot down the line.

“I feel confident in tiebreakers. I knew when I went up, 5-2, I should be good, but he came back and got it to 5-4, so I just knew I had to have two good serves, and I did. I was trying to jam him by serving in the middle,” said Appleman, who won, 7-6(4). “I know his forehand’s really good, so I tried to keep it at his backhand as much as possible, but he kept hitting that inside out forehand that was doing good.”

At No. 2 singles, Chris Stone won the first set for Emmaus, 6-4, but Liberty’s Roman Farhad led in the second set, 4-3, when the No. 1 singles match ended. Since the overall team score was 4-0, No. 2 singles did not finish.

The Hurricanes were awarded individual gold medals and the district team trophy.

“It feels great. It feels great,” Appleman said.

Liberty will compete in the PIAA Class 3A State Team Tennis Tournament scheduled to begin on May 14.

“Inevitably, it comes down to their work ethic, their willingness to come on court whenever they can, and then our numbers. We’re constantly growing and developing, and when you have a team that’s as large as what we have, you constantly have competition,” Conrad said, regarding the Hurricanes’ success. “One of the great things and also difficult things of this program is that I’m every single one of these players’ private coach. There’s a lot of beauty to that because they play mostly the way I want them to play. The difficulty is the time management aspect. They put in a lot of time...I want to provide as many opportunities as possible to students and to all abilities.”