Lawrence High senior Ryan Abbott returns a serve during a doubles match between he and partner Taylor Seratte, senior, against Free State junior Michael Swank and senior Rodolfo Gauto-Mariotti Wednesday, April 15, 2009 at the Lawrence Tennis Center.

Free State junior Michael Swank returns a shot Wednesday at Lawrence Tennis Center. FSHS swept Lawrence High at the dual.

Free State High sophomore Patrick Carttar sensed that something was up.

Playing in one of the final matches to finish up at Wednesday’s city tennis dual between FSHS and Lawrence High, Carttar noticed when the gallery outside of his court grew substantially.

To that point, the Firebirds had won every match, and Carttar was locked in a tiebreaker with Lawrence’s Will Conley. Needing to win to keep the Firebirds’ hopes of a sweep alive, Carttar pushed past the distractions and won the match, 8-7, and 7-4 in the tiebreaker.

“My nerves definitely made me try harder,” Carttar said. “I didn’t know if we had won every match or not, but it looked like it.”

Moments after Carttar picked up the victory, No. 8 singles player Diego Gonzalez left the court with an 8-6 victory against Connor Schmidt to ensure the Free State sweep.

“Of course, you always want to go out with the attitude that you’re going to win every match,” FSHS coach John Richey said. “But the real key today was winning five of those nine matches and winning the dual.”

That came in relatively easy fashion thanks to top singles players Michael Swank and Rodolfo Gauto Mariotti. Swank won his singles match, 8-0, against LHS’s Michael Sang, and Gauto Mariotti won his, 8-1, against the Lions’ Taylor Seratte.

The victory was made even sweeter for Gauto Mariotti, an exchange student from Paraguay who lives with Swank. He spent his first six months in the United States as a Chesty Lion.

“I know all of these guys,” Gauto Mariotti said. “And they’re all awesome. Today was really a special day for me.”

Also picking up victories for Free State on Wednesday were: Blaine Kaehr (8-1 vs. Ryan Abbott), Dravid Joseph (8-0 vs. Thomas Zheng), Brock Norwood (8-5 vs. Byron Varberg) and Daniel Gilroy (8-0 vs. Chris Lawhorn).