Winning is never easy. No matter how you slice it, dice it or blend it, winning involves a lot of hard work, mixed in with a few dashes of luck.

The Lindbergh High girls’ tennis team put in a lot of work and got that little stroke of luck as it recently captured the Suburban South/West Tournament. The Flyers won the “C Flight” which involved Oakville, Parkway North and Parkway Central.

“We didn’t expect to do as well as we did,” Lindbergh Coach Cathy Lorenz told the Call. “We were very excited after beating Oakville in the first day of the tournament.”

In a hard-fought match, the Flyers posted a 6-5 win over the Tigers as the weight of the win was on the shoulders of Mallory Nezam at the No. 5 singles position.

“Mallory normally doesn’t play singles for us,” Lorenz said. “She had already played doubles earlier in the day, but she did awesome.”

The Flyers proceeded to hand Parkway North an 11-0 slamming and took on Park-way Central for the championship.

Senior Nikole Gardner helped Lindbergh post a 6-5 win over Parkway Central as she won the No. 2 singles match, capturing the victory for the Flyers.

“She (Gardner) really held on and eventually won the tiebreaker for us,” Lorenz said. “She probably played our best district match for us last year.”

At the No. 3 doubles slot, sophomores Melissa Cullman and Michelle Buf have played very well throughout the season for the Flyers. In fact, Lorenz sees them moving up definitely for the 2004 campaign.

“They’ve taken a lot of lessons over the summer,” Lorenz said. “They’ve just kicked some butt this season.”

The Flyers return to play at 3 p.m. Friday as they play host to Oakville. Lorenz already knows that the Tigers will be looking for a payback after their loss to Lindbergh in the South/West Tournament.

“They’re going to want to pay us back for winning conference,” Lorenz said. “It’s going to be a long, tough match.”