Freedom High School's Flannery Johnston and Elizabeth McCarthy took third place at the District XI Class AAA Girls Doubles Tennis Tournament last Thursday at Parkland High School.

The pair's first match resulted in a victory over Pocono Mountain East's Emma Lindauer and Amanda Anglemeyer, 6-0, 6-0.

Perhaps Johnston and McCarthy's toughest match was against Southern Lehigh's Lucy Zhang and Keelin McLoughlin, won by the Patriots, 7-5, 7-6 (11-9).

McCarthy said, "We were both really tired, and they were really consistent. The wind was just as bad as it is today."

The Southern Lehigh match was their second in the same day.

"We were ready to be done with the match. We needed to close it out," said Johnston.

In the quarterfinals, Johnston and McCarthy defeated Whitehall's Eiman Nazif and Emily Yenzer, 6-2, 6-3, before falling in the semifinals to Liberty's Samantha Peterson and Madelyn Conrad, 5-7, 2-6.

"We thought we could do better than last time. [In the first set] we were both really focused. We probably played our best tennis," McCarthy said.

All things considered, Johnston felt that the Patriots did do better.

"We just weren't winning the big points," she said.