MURFREESBORO - Baylor girls tennis coach Dustin Kane has a coaching philosophy which has served him and his players well for seven straight seasons.
Wednesday at the Old Fort Park Tennis Complex, Baylor defeated long-time rival GPS, 4-0, in the TSSAA Spring Fling XIV state tournament for the D-II AA state crown.
“The keys to victory and having success each year is preparation, conditioning and a strong schedule with everything pointing to win a state championship,” said Kane.
Under Kane’s leadership, Baylor has now won seven straight girls state titles, along with Rotary and DecoTurf championships against some of the best teams in the South.
Rain Delay: “We had a long rain delay before our finals match started and I was a little concerned how the players would handle sitting round for a few hours waiting to plays.
But Kane had nothing to be concerned about as the Red Raiders won all three doubles matches for the one team point and then closed out the victory with wins at Nos. 1-3-5.
“We came out with a fast start in doubles to win all three positions which was great and that carried over in our success in singles.”
More Tennis: Some Baylor and GPS players compete in state quarters and semis in singles and doubles today with finals to be played Friday morning.
Baylor’s Drew Hawkins is a two-time defending state singles champion.
Boys Final: MBA 4, Baylor 2 … Defending state boys champion had beaten MBA, 4-2, earlier in the season, but the Big Red reversed a couple of those singles losses to win it fourth state team title in this decade and the first since 2012.
One key to the win was the MBA won the doubles point whereas in the season meeting, Baylor had captured the doubles point.
MBA then won at Nos. 1-4-6 singles for the win.
“MBA played well, there were a lot of tight matches and big points and they won more of those than we did,” said Baylor coach Ned Caswell.
“We had our chances and Alex Kadrie played great for us today as he has all year.”