GOFFSTOWN, N.H. — You can still refer to the Lebanon High girls’ tennis team as the Raiders, but right now they probably prefer to be called the Champs.

Just over a year ago, the Lebanon girls made their first finals appearance in program history and suffered defeat. On Saturday, the Raiders found themselves in the finals again and this time secured an NHIAA Division III title, winning a 5-4 nail-biter that came down to the final doubles match against Gilford High at the YMCA Allard Center of Goffstown.

Lebanon head coach Rob Johnstone detailed the program’s meteoric rise.

He noted that three seasons ago, there were questions about whether Lebanon would even have a girls’ tennis team.

“There was like a last-second friends talked to friends. There we were at the River Valley Club with 10 or 11 girls — seven or eight who had never played tennis,” said Johnstone.

That team went on to make the quarterfinals. Last season’s team advanced to the finals, and now this season’s team has won the championship.

“We’re talking about a three-year window, from maybe we’re not going to have a team to state champions,” said Johnstone, who described the final as “mentally grueling.”

The Raiders found themselves in a 4-2 hole after the singles matches against unbeaten Gilford, which happened to be the team that handed Lebanon its only loss of the season.

Mari Utell and Samyra Graber picked up the singles wins to keep the Raiders’ championship hopes alive, and with their backs against the wall, in need of a doubles sweep to win the title, the Raiders played like champions.

The duo of Laura Hines and Utell got the ball rolling for Lebanon, winning their no. 1 doubles match 8-5 to make the overall match score 4-3 in favor of Gilford.

Then, with the no. 2 and no. 3 doubles matches being played simultaneously, the no. 3 duo of Payton Breedlove and Nina Ellingson pulled out an 8-6 victory.

Tied at four wins apiece in the overall match score, all eyes shifted to what ended up becoming the championship-deciding match between Lebanon’s Amalia Mladek/Graber and Gilford’s Tess Eckhard/Grace Powers.

The no. 2 doubles match was a microcosm of the entire battle between the two squads, featuring back-and-forth momentum.

Ultimately, the Lebanon girls drew on the resilience that had propelled them to the finals in the first place and gutted out a 9-7 win to clinch the title.

“You can do drills all day. You can’t coach or teach the kind of grittiness and fortitude or guts or any other word you want to call it that these guys showed today. It’s unbelievable,” said Johnstone.

This win was redemption for Hines and Utell, who were both a part of last year’s team that came up short.

On what it meant to each of the girls to win on Saturday, Utell said, “It’s pretty awesome,” while Hines said, “It feels really good.”

Overall, Johnstone called the victory an incredible accomplishment and talked about how enjoyable it was to coach this team to a championship.

“You coach because you truly love your kids. This group of girls—words can’t do justice to how much fun those van rides are, how much fun practice was, how hard they pushed each other, but never at the expense of smiling and laughing.”

Michael Coughlin Jr. can be reached at mcoughlin@vnews.com