Baylor stretches girls’ title streak to nine

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Since 2013, the Hawkins family has made a home in Murfreesboro the week before Memorial Day, the week reserved for the TSSAA tennis championships — first at the Old Fort courts, now at the renamed Adams Tennis Center.

They’ve been part of quite a run of Baylor School success, with Drew Hawkins’ five consecutive girls’ team championships and three individual Division II-AA state singles titles. Now a junior in the program, Anna Hawkins has a chance to catch her older sister’s team accomplishments.

Anna helped the Lady Red Raiders earn their ninth consecutive team state championship Wednesday, defeating Hutchison 4-2 to finish the season 13-1.

“It’s just crazy. Unreal,” the younger Hawkins said. “It’s like I’m following in her footsteps, almost.

“We have a little rivalry, but it’s mainly just support for the both of us.”

Drew, now a sophomore at Belmont, plays No. 1 singles for the Bruins.

Signal Mountain lost 4-1 to Summertown in the Small Class state final, a repeat of the 2018 semifinal matchup won by Signal’s Lady Eagles.

For the second straight season, Baylor had to hold up against an upperclassmen-heavy team in the DII-AA final. Last year it was a GPS team that had five seniors in a six-player lineup that pushed the Lady Red Raiders to the brink before falling 4-3. This season it was Hutchison, which had four seniors and a junior in the top six.

Like last season Baylor lost the doubles point, falling 8-1 at No. 1 and 8-2 at No. 2.

But also like last year, the Lady Red Raiders rallied with four wins in singles, with Landie McBrayer, Carolyn Reid, Paige Gilbert and Grace Mooney winning. McBrayer’s 7-5, 7-5 win over University of Tennessee at Chattanooga signee Grace Ann Dunavant clinched the win.

“That just shows our confidence,” Anna Hawkins said. “It shows that we’re a team and we can do anything if we put our hearts and minds to it. Today was tough, but we just kept believing we could do it, so we stayed confident and kept our mind focused on the game.”

Signal’s quest for a second consecutive state championship fell short, as it wasn’t able to force doubles against the Summertown Lady Eagles. Signal’s team point came at No. 1 singles, where Grace Williams won 6-3, 6-4.

Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.