A season of firsts is building momentum for the Dartmouth High tennis team’s historic run in the postseason.

On June 8, the Indians secured a 3-2 victory over Hopkinton High in the Div. 2 South quarter finals. It follows the team’s 4-1 win against Catholic Memorial in the opening round of the tournament.

With the game tied at 2-2, it came down to junior's Ryan Simas and Sean Sebastiao in the final doubles match. They’ve been playing tennis since they were kids, motivated by their siblings who also shared a passion for the sport.

“We’ve been friends forever, since probably the first grade and we have so much chemistry together,” Sebastiao said. “We started playing tennis together in our freshmen year and here we are.”

The pair relied on that chemistry to guide them through the match. When Head Coach Donald York told them the game was tied, it sent them both into overdrive.

“It was a really tough battle as both teams are equally as competitive,” Simas said. “We knew we had to pull through for our team. It was for the team. We wanted to go to the playoffs so badly.”

The Indians’ Trevor Schwarzmann also enjoyed a strong performance, defeating the Hillers’ Nalin Storm 6-1 and 6-1 in singles. He also sees the momentum carrying himself and his team forward.

“This year going in we had some firsts -- we won the OCL, our league, for the first time ever, we beat [Old Rochester] for the first time ever,” Schwarzmann said. “We knew this is one of the best teams we’ve had in a long time, and we knew we had a good chance coming in.”

Senior Connor Alves competed in the final singles match, finishing his sets with a 7-4 tiebreaker. He relied on his improvements since joining the team in his freshman year to carry him to victory.

“It just all comes down to consistency with me,” Alves said. “I was not too much of a consistent player but I’ve been working on it, and for the past four years I’ve been going to Dartmouth High my consistency level has skyrocketed.”

As for what’s next, York said practice is high on the priority list as the team preps for its next match.The Indians will face Scituate High on June 12 at 4 p.m. The match will be at Dartmouth High School.

“Right now, we’re operating on a high confidence level, and we’ll just see what happens next,” York said.