Battling rain and the defending state champions, the St. Aloysius tennis team pulled together to dethrone MAIS royalty.

The Flashes served their way to a 6-3 win over reigning Class AAA champion Manchester Academy Wednesday afternoon at Halls Ferry Park.

“They’re good athletes and have good net play,” St. Al coach Rick Shields said. “When you have good net play you can win a lot of doubles, that’s why our boys have been beat at the net.”

Manchester bested the Flashes in two doubles matches against the teams of Carson Collier and Ethan Naron 6-0, 6-2, and Adam Eckstein and Ryan Jarrett 6-2, 6-4. The Mavericks received their third win of the match by beating Jackson Oaks in a third set tiebreaker in boys’ singles 6-4, 6-2, 10-5.

Despite losing the three matches, Shields was satisfied with the fight his team showed to continue its undefeated performance in Division 3-AAA. The Flashes won their third match in three days after beating Florence on Monday and Hartfield Academy on Tuesday.

St. Al is 3-0 in District 3-AAA, 3-2 overall, and will next play Riverfield Academy Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. at Halls Ferry Park.

On the girls’ side, Allie Falls and Ann-Stewart Piazza won a crowd-awing doubles match in straight sets with long rallies and determination.

“They were really consistent and had good strategies,” Piazza said. “They were the best we’ve played so far in our district.”

“It was a good team to play against,” Falls said.

In the first set, the two teams couldn’t seem to get over the advantage-point hump when playing the deuce for the game. Piazza said the back-and-forth advantage duel continued through much of the first set.

Shields was impressed with the development of Falls and Piazza he witnessed against Manchester.

“They’re playing much better right now. Last weekend’s tournament purported them to playing better tennis,” Shields said.

Aside from Piazza and Falls, the duo of Ashley Jarrett and Taylor Chewning won the Flashes’ mixed doubles match over the Mavericks 6-1, 6-4.

Jarrett and Chewning are seventh-graders who have waited for an opportunity to play high school tennis. The duo won all three matches they played this week.

“They’ve worked hard for the last couple of years and have been itching to get to high school tennis,” Shields said. “So far they’ve played really well.”