MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Baylor School girls' tennis coach Ned Caswell said all of the right things after his Lady Red Raiders fell 4-3 to Knoxville Catholic in the TSSAA Division II-AA team final Wednesday afternoon at the Spring Fling.
And yet there was a combination of shock and pain in the final result.
Even hours later, after the team had time to eat a meal and support the boys' team in the Red Raiders' final against Chattanooga rival McCallie (also a 4-3 loss for Baylor), Caswell found himself searching for the right words.
"It's my 16th year, so you're going to win some of those, and you can't win them all," Caswell said of the close result. "You put yourself in a position to train and give everything you have. People just don't understand: Tennis is the first day of school to the last day of school; it's not like other sports that have an offseason. It is a grind.
"Today was a tough day, but we worked 364 days to get here today, and sometimes you win and sometimes you don't. We have been fortunate enough to win a lot of them, and then this one just didn't go our way."
But this one, by all accounts, felt different because of how close Caswell and his team felt they were to returning to the top.
Baylor won its regular-season match with Knoxville Catholic, 5-2, but in Wednesday's final, the Lady Red Raiders lost the doubles point — the Lady Fighting Irish won two of three matches — to go down 1-0 and put more pressure on the singles courts.
Both teams staked their claims there, with No. 3 Sloane Proffitt, No. 4 Claudia Finlay and No. 6 Amelia Ohlsson all winning in two sets for Baylor. The Irish, though, won the first two courts in two-setters as well, and with the match riding on No. 5 singles, Knoxville Catholic's Lauren Murphy rallied after losing the first set 6-4 to win the next two 6-4, 7-5 and secure the decisive team point.
Baylor's Finlay had teamed with Sara Catherine Bradshaw for a doubles victory earlier in the match.
This is the fourth consecutive team state championship for the Irish, with all four title wins coming over Baylor. The Lady Red Raiders had won nine straight titles from 2011 to 2019 to run the program's championship count to 13 before Knoxville Catholic's streak began.
"I told the girls that as long as you put everything you possibly could, then you don't really lose," Caswell said. "You lost a match, but the loss comes from regret, and you really can't have anything to regret.
"When you're one of the top teams, you know everybody's shooting for you, and Knox Catholic has some strong players and came out on top."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.
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