Two years ago, Mounds View brothers Abraham and Petro Alexopoulos — Alex, for short — were living on the Greek island of Crete, enjoying the sunshine and the warmth and the outdoor tennis. Minnesota was the furthest thing from their minds.

Playing an aggressive, hard-hitting style, Petro Alex, an eighth-grader, provided the clinching point at No. 4 singles for the Mustangs in a 4-3 victory over Elk River in the Class 2A boys' tennis championship match. Earlier, Abraham and fellow senior Carter Jones had won their match at No. 1 doubles.

Mounds View's fourth state championship validated the Mustangs' season-long No. 1 ranking despite not having an elite level player at the top of the lineup. Mounds View's strength all season has been its depth, which was on display Wednesday at the University of Minnesota's Baseline Tennis Center as the Mustangs dropped the top three singles matches but swept the doubles before Petro's match-winning 6-3, 6-3 victory.

"That's the kind of thing that makes team tennis special," Mounds View coach Mike Cartwright said. "We didn't have four or five great players. We won with 13 really good ones."

The Alex brothers experienced a number of firsts when they moved to Minnesota in 2013. They had never seen snow, never played tennis under a roof and never been on a tennis team before. After winning Wednesday's match, Petro admitted that this was a different kind of paradise.

"I was excited to move to Minnesota because it was America, but when we got here, it was like the coldest winter in Minnesota in 20 years," he said. "I had never played indoor tennis. I had never seen snow. It was all new to me, but this is just great. I love it."

Senior Abraham Alexopoulos, brother of Petro, also contributed to Mounds View’s state title by winning a doubles point with Carter Jones.

Much of the credit for Mounds View's success goes to its senior leaders — Carter Jones, Abraham Alex and Hunter Krebsbach. The Mustangs were seeded No. 1 in the 2014 tournament but lost to East Ridge in the first round. That, Jones said, would not happen again.

"Last year we faltered because we didn't have the kind of work ethic and focus that we needed," Jones said. "We got together over the summer and decided to start over and do things the right way. We told the players that if you weren't going to work hard, this might not be the team for you."

Mounds View completed the season 27-1, its lone loss coming to Wayzata in the first week of the season. And the Mustangs did it with by using the same lineup all spring. Cartwright knew how strong his team was, so he wasn't about to mess with it by shifting players around.

"We have depth at singles and doubles," he said. "Top to bottom, the lineup we played all season was the best we have."

Rochester Century's Jessie Aney remained undefeated despite the Panthers' 6-1 loss to Mounds View in the semifinals. Her 19-0 record will be put to the test in Thursday's singles competition. If she makes it past the first round, she'll likely play Forest Lake's Toby Boyer, the No. 2-seed in the singles bracket and one of the tournament favorites.