Clayton girls tennis coach Chris Salaveria stresses to his team the importance of living for the moment.
And the moment, as big as it was, did not seem too big Saturday for the Greyhounds as they captured the Missouri Class 1 girls team title at the Cooper Tennis Complex in Springfield.
Clayton defeated Ursuline 5-1 in the semifinals in the morning and beat St. Michael the Archangel 5-0 in the championship match in the afternoon.
The title completed a ºüÀêÊÓƵ sweep of the three team titles. Ladue defended its Class 2 title Friday while John Burroughs won the Class 3 championship earlier Saturday.
The championship for Clayton was its second in school history. The Greyhounds won in 1985, which was the last year the state used a point system for team state. Clayton, which was coached by John Buell, finished that year with 14 points, one more than Rock Bridge.
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Clayton had eight trips to the final four since then without a championship.
“These girls improved every week from early September to mid October,†Salaveria said. “They always had a positive attitude and they had fun all season.â€
The most fun, of course, was celebrating after Katherine Nguyen won the clinching fifth match at No. 6 singles against the Guardians.
As they had done in the semifinals against Ursuline, the Greyhounds swept the three doubles to start the match. Many of those matches were very tight.
“The girls value the doubles and know how important they are in dual matches,†Salaveria said. “They came through on the clutch points. I think it helped that we had previous experience at state, both in the individual and team tournaments.â€
One of those experiences was in last year’s team championship match, when Clayton fell to Kennett.
Julia Cramer, a sophomore, said that match was not on their mind when they took the court Saturday afternoon.
“The past is the past,†Cramer said. “We focused on the match we were playing now and it’s an incredible feeling that we won. I don’t know if it has sunk in yet.â€
Clayton had some ups and downs during the regular season, losing seven times in a tough schedule. They were blanked in their final two regular season matches against the other two team champs.
“It’s always a positive experience playing our neighbors, no matter the result,†Salaveria said. “I think it helped us in the postseason.â€
The Greyhounds dominated the postseason, losing just one court in their six matches.
That would turn out to be a highlight for the other local team in the final four. Ursuline’s Emmie Kinder defeated Anaya Singh at No. 1 singles, 7-5, 6-0 in the semifinals. That was a rematch of last year’s Class 1 singles final which was won by Singh.
Ursuline closed its season with a 5-1 victory over Savannah in the third-place match.