Both the Belen boys and girls easily registered 7-0 wins over Miyamura, a developing tennis program, but Hope Christian provided a bigger challenge for the BHS teams, with the Eagles beating the Huskies 4-3 and the Lady Eagles winning 5-2.

"This will help us feel good about ourselves," said BHS tennis coach Regina Elkins. "We needed to feel some success going into the APS Duals."

The Belen teams compete in the Albuquerque Public Schools Duals this week. Both teams have Thursday opening-round duals set for 4 p.m., with the Eagle boys taking on La Cueva at Jerry Cline Park and the Lady Eagles facing Valley at Albuquerque Academy.

Consolation and winner's bracket matches will be held Friday, and teams still alive in the double-elimination tourney will finish up on Saturday.

While Elkins said both teams are looking forward to the APS Duals, she offered up no prediction the BHS boys will upset La Cueva, winners of the last nine Class 5A team state titles. That's what made getting a strong Saturday so important.

For the BHS boys, Drew Sander, Taylor Williams, Blake Matheson, Andres Salas and Daniel Rodriquez all were on the winning side in both of their Saturday matches. No repeating was allowed, so all players could only play singles or doubles.

Williams and Drew Sander both dropped the first set of their match against Hope Christian opponents, rallying to win in three sets.

On the girls side, the singles players dominated. Brittany Vallejos, Stephanie Sander, Monica Evan-Chavez and Alishia Montoya all won twice, with many sets ending up with either 6-0 or 6-1 scores or very close outcomes.

Shelby Sinclair and Annalicia Sanchez teamed up to be the Lady Eagles' only undefeated doubles team of the day. The pair survived a 10-8 tiebreaker in the first set of their win over a Hope Christian team.

There were a couple of matches against the Huskies that started out well and ended up as losses, and a few of the wins were a bit closer than necessary. The day dragged on so long, the teams pushed the 5:30 deadline for exiting the indoor tennis bubbles at the center.

Some of the varsity newcomers, like boys players Rodriquez and Salas, are just getting their feet wet, and Saturday's experience was the kind where players are learning tons of new things every time out.

"Those guys (Rodriquez and Salas) were just happy to have uniforms," said Elkins. "A lot of the younger players really love to play."