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Team captain Kathi Ayres didn't expect her Steamboat Red to advance to the district playoffs when the tennis season began this summer.

"This is a brand-new team," Ayres said. "We just started this team six months ago, so this came as a pretty big surprise to all of us."

The surprise is that the women's 3.5 team finished the season with a 7-1 record, won the mountain region and will advance to represent the mountain area league at the district tournament Aug. 8-10 in Denver.

"We are the first Steamboat team to advance this far," Ayres said. "When I became the captain of this team at the start of the season, I was just hoping that we would not finish at the bottom. It's been a great season, and everybody is having fun."

Coach Carol Baily admitted that she, too, was a little surprised by her team's success this year but knew that the Steamboat players had the ability to make it this far.

"It's very exciting," Baily said. "This is our first year, and I'm new to the USTA format, so I was a little surprised. But on the other hand, I knew we had a lot of talent on this team."

The team clinched the championship with two wins over Snowmass, which also was undefeated coming into the last week of play, and a win over River Valley Ranch of Carbondale last weekend in Steamboat Springs.

The victories over Snowmass came Saturday. Steamboat's Becky Lamb and Karen Dodson both picked up wins in singles play. The doubles team of Sandy Jenny and Janet Liefer also picked up a point. Ayres and Barbara Ross collected the final point for the Steamboat team en route to the 4-1 victory.

Steamboat also won the second match of the day against the Snowmass team, thanks to Lamb and Diane DeGroff, who won singles points. Ayres and Ross kept things going by taking their points in doubles action. Jan McGinnis and Marylen Meyers added to Steamboat's final tally with a win in their match.

The two wins over Snowmass put the Steamboat team in the driver's seat and headed into the final two matches of the regular season against River Valley.

Steamboat took care of business in the first set Sunday by topping the River Valley team 4-1.

Lamb picked up the only singles point. The Ayres-Ross team, Jenny-Liefer team and the team of Dodson and Lola Schlapkohl picked up the slack in doubles play to give the Steamboat team the overall title.

Steamboat lost its final match of the season to River Valley, but Ayres said the Steamboat women were drained and already knew that they had earned the regional title. Dodson was the only Steamboat player to pick up a point in the 4-1 loss.

The red team's mark of 7-1 was the best in the league. Snowmass finished second at 6-2 and River Valley finished third with a 5-3 record. The Steamboat Blue team finished at 2-6 and Maroon Creek finished last with an 0-8 record.

The district tournament will begin in Denver on Aug. 8 at seven different courts across the city. Ayres said the team would play matches at the Colorado Athletic Club's Monaco and Inverness locations.

Baily said the team didn't have any expectations as they headed to Denver to play in the tournament. The squad is just happy to have gotten this far and is hoping to have a good time, their coach said.

There will be 19 teams in the district tournament, which will be played in four flights. The winners of each flight will advance to a semifinal round and the winners of that round will advance to the championships. The district champion will earn a berth to the sectional championships and a shot at national-level play.

"We are not expecting anything down there," Ayres said. "We are happy to have made it this far, so anything else will be icing on the cake."