Liberty High School's 4-3 tennis victory over Bethlehem Catholic was highlighted by three three-set matches and otherwise, close two-set matches.

The number three singles match in which Liberty's Julian Mark defeated Becahi's Peter Demyan 7-6 (7-2), 4-6, 7-5 lasted for more than two hours.

"I need a nap," Mark said as he headed straight towards the Hurricane bench. "It's the most relieving feeling in the world to know you didn't waste 2 1/4 hours of your time."

For Mark, the match against Demyan was the closest he has ever played.

"His playing style is like mine, but he was keeping the ball in play with slices. I had to adapt, and he'd wait for the right moment to be aggressive," said Mark. "Not to dramatize it, but I was starting to lose hope. Then you win a game, and you pick yourself up."

In the end, Mark won on a hard overhead.

"I learned a lot about how to actually win. In practice, you learn how to hit, but in this match I learned how to mentally win. As the game goes on, you make better decisions," he said.

Just as challenging was the number two singles match in which Becahi's Ryan Schmidt defeated Liberty's Milind Jagota 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-5).

Schmidt admittedly blew a 5-1 lead to fall behind 5-6 in the first set.

"Then I hit a tweener to win the point. That was a big momentum change in the match, and then I won the tiebreaker," said Schmidt.

Becahi coach George Harmanos urged Schmidt to make his shots.

"He just kept telling me that the points I would lose were unforced errors, so I just had to take them out of my game," Schmidt said. "He's [Jagota] pretty consistent, so I had to hit smart shots. He started coming to the net a lot, so that's probably the reason I won the match."

At number one singles, Liberty's Dan Lynn defeated Becahi's Niko Franekic 6-3, 6-0.

In doubles, Grant Hicks and Ryan Zeiner defeated Marc Burritt and Gavan Snyder 8-4, and John Corley and Luke Mesko defeated Alex Burlew and Evan Burlew 7-5, 6-3, both matches won by the Hawks.

Jesse Claudio and Luke Conrad defeated Hesshanth Jeyarangdan and David Napierkowski 6-2, 4-6, 6-1, and Colin Bokin and Duke Jin defeated Jack Jiang and Andrew Kaeser 6-3, 6-1, both matches won by the Hurricanes.