MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — The Baylor School's girls' tennis team won nine consecutive Division II-AA state championships from 2011-19 and has played in the final match for 13 consecutive seasons.
Yet there's a hunger around the program after falling to Knoxville Catholic in the last three state championship matches (there was no tournament in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic). So, after last season's loss to the Irish in the finals, the Lady Red Raiders got back to work with a goal of taking the final step.
"I think every single year we've all been driven to win even more because it's frustrating — especially losing to the same team in the same way every single year," junior Margarette Berdy said. "I think we've focused on not doing that, just getting better and supporting one another. We've put a lot of work in this year.
"We've lost to Catholic in the finals the two years I've been here and it really stinks. But those losses have brought us closer and just makes us want to win even more — since we haven't won in four or five years. Tomorrow means a lot for us; we're really excited and we really want to win."
The club gained a little confidence by defeating the Irish 5-2 in Chattanooga last month, but a regular-season match isn't the same as a championship.
Still, Baylor will get that chance Wednesday after handling St. Mary's 5-0 with relative ease in the state semifinal at the Adams Tennis Center as competition began Tuesday, improving to 14-2. After the win, the team was able to watch the Irish defeat Hutchison 4-2 in the other semifinal. The two will face off again in the championship at 12:30 Eastern Wednesday.
Sloan Proffitt, Claudia Finlay, Molly Donovan and Amelia Ohlsson claimed singles victories, dropping a combined six games in eight sets between the four. Berdy was up 6-3, 3-1 at the time the match was called and senior captain Helen Guerry was ahead 6-3, 4-0.
"We've never beaten them before," Guerry said of the importance of the regular-season win over Knoxville Catholic. "Normally, I'm nervous to play them, but this year I was excited to play them because I had a really good feeling we were going to win and we did, and we won pretty solidly. I think getting over that hump of always losing gave us so much more motivation because it made it a reality in a way."
The Lady Red Raiders record is 15-2 on the year.
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