After winning the NSW Combined Catholic Colleges Boys Teams Championships earlier in the year, Aaron Osmond, Cooper Wilkinson, Vitorio Sardinha and Nathan Moore took to the courts in Albury for the Australian Schools Tennis Challenge.

Pitted against the top teams from Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and the various NSW schools systems, the St Mary's boys finished 11th overall but were "unlucky" manager Tim Kennedy said.

"They were in a three-way countback in their pool for fourth," Kennedy said.

"And they lost one of their matches overall by one set."

He said the boys were disappointed because they finished bottom of their pool but he pointed out to them that if one or two results had of gone their way they could have been playing off for fifth and sixth.

"At that level of competition it is so tight," he said.

The second year in-a-row the school has qualified for the nationals, he said it was a really good effort "from four boys from Gunnedah" with many of the schools they were playing against having much bigger pools of players to pick from, and some even specific tennis programs.

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He thought they all performed well, particularly Osmond who played as their no.1.

"He had a winning record against the other no.1's so that shows where he is at," he said.

The Year 10 student was the oldest member of the side with Wilkinson in Year 9, Sardinha in Year 8 and Moore only in Year 7.

He was the youngest competitor at the tournament and learnt a lot from the experience. In a lot of his games his opponents were a lot older and bigger.

Each match consisted of four singles rubbers and two doubles.

St Mary's started their campaign well beating last year's champions McDonald College from Sydney.

They then went down to St Peter's Grammar from Brisbane, who ended up finishing third, 4-2 before getting "whitewashed" by Sydney Boys High.

That was followed by a 5-1 loss to eventual champions Applecross State High from Perth, and 4-2 loss to Prince Alfred College Adelaide to finish their pool games.

Up against Scots College Sydney in their first final, it was 2-all after the singles.

"We had to win the doubles in straight sets because the matches they won they won in straight sets," Kennedy said.

"But we lost the first set and that was it."

Finishing the way they started, they then beat Redlands College Sydney.

"We were 3-1 up after the singles and all we had to do was win a set in the doubles and then we couldn't be beaten," he said.

Which they did.

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