BOISE, IDAHO -- Team Utah tennis, an over age-50 team consisting of eight women went up to Boise, Idaho, in late September and battled for the Western Region tennis title against Montana, Idaho and Nevada. It wasn't the first time they had gone to the regionals against these other states, but it was the first time they actually won the whole thing.

Three local Davis County players were included on this team. Pat Osborn is from Farmington and the other two, Marianne Saibara and Julie Bradley, are from neighboring Centerville. The rest of the team is split up between Ogden and Salt Lake City, in terms of hometown.

Osborn has personally been on three different teams that have traveled to the regionals in Boise. The best finish that she's been a part of was third place, two years ago.

The tournament is set up into doubles pairs, no singles players. At any given time, all the pairs will be playing. That makes it hard to know how all the others are faring while you're on the court trying to claw your way through your own match. With the team being so close knit, "it's hard for the team to not be able to cheer on the others," according to Pat.

After every one of the doubles teams won their brackets in the regionals and were awarded the regional crown, it was on to Palm Springs, Calif., to the national title tournament.

Team Utah took the national title in Palm Springs in dominating fashion. They again were victorious in all their doubles brackets and took the title over different states around the country.

When asked what it felt like to win it all compared to finishing third two years ago, Osborn responded: "I guess I pray for retirement now. I've been on some great teams and feel just a little bit lucky that we were able to win it this time."

The old cliche is that championship teams do need a little bit of luck along the way to win a title, in any sport really. This year's Red Sox came back to win eight games in a row in the American League Championship Series and the World Series to win it all. A lot of that is skill and talent, but some of that had to do with Lady Luck.

Now that the team has won a championship, all but three will have to leave the team for next season, according to rules. Recruiting for a new team doesn't take long to happen. Three years ago after the third-place finish, Osborn was called up and asked to compete on one of the local teams the very next day after the national tourney loss.

To even advance to the Boise regional, you have to win the Salt Lake area league championship. Also, after winning the national tournament, you still have to win your area and regional titles to advance to the national championship rounds. That becomes a tougher and tougher feat when the team can be different from year to year.

"When you start being a part of certain teams you think that this one might have the ingredients needed to win the whole thing or this one might, then you don't. Then you get teams that find that ingredient and use it to their advantage (and win)," said Osborn.

"I have been on some great teams in the past. We weren't any better than some of the others this year; we just had that intangible that puts a team over the top. I've played with former college players and teaching professionals and I just never thought that I'd ever have a chance at this and I loved every minute of it."