NAZARETH – There were plenty of blue and white clad tennis players on the court Monday, but Nazareth left little doubt that its blue was better.

The second-seeded Blue Eagles swept seventh-seeded Pleasant Valley 5-0 in the quarterfinal round of the District 11 Class 3A team tennis tournament.

“This was a really strong team we played,” said Pleasant Valley coach Mark Allison. “Nazareth’s No.1 and No. 2 singles players are very good. They beat Bethlehem Liberty’s ones and twos during the regular season, and I see them winning it all. Even though Liberty is the top seed, I think Nazareth will win the tournament.”

Allison knew coming in that his talented singles lineup faced extremely tough matchups against some of the district’s top players.

It showed when Nazareth’s No.1 singles player Gabe Knowles whitewashed Josh Schaffner in straight sets 6-0, 6-0.

Schaffner was coming off a strong showing in last week’s District 11 singles tournament, making it to the semifinals before falling. But Knowles, who reached the D-11 finals before falling, was dominant.

“Josh won a singles medal last week at districts and was playing really well. He just ran into an outstanding player today,” Allison said. “He’s worked really hard on his game.”

It was the same story at No. 2 and No. 3 singles as Nazareth’s Andrew Nicolae beat Jake Ammermann, and the Blue Eagles’ Nate Tauber disposed of John Barry by identical 6-0, 6-0 scores.

The doubles matches also went to Nazareth, although the Bears were much more competitive. In No. 1 doubles, the Blue Eagles’ Shane Patel and Hamed Selemani upended the Pleasant Valley team of Milo Tauer and Evan Thomas, 7-5, 6-4. The No. 2 doubles match found the Eagles’ David Aruja and Bret Alvino posting an 8-3 pro-set win over Nathan Vo and Ben Jacoby.

“Probably out of all the teams in District 11, this was the toughest team for us to matchup with,” Allison said.

Despite the loss, Allison was happy with how the season went for the Bears.

“Overall I thought as a team that we did a really good job,” Allison said about the 12-5 season. “I thought our kids did a fine job this season.”