RIDGELAND — After splitting sets, it was time to get happy and the pair of Briana Beesley and Jean Marie Mabry did thatas they left the Ridgeland Tennis Center with a Class 1A state title in girls’ No. 2 doubles.

Beesley and Mabry now join a long list of state tennis champions from St. Aloysius, including recent three-time doubles champ Bonny Neill. In between laughs and giggles, the pair worked out a plan and made enough good shots to force two early service breaks to get on top of Sacred Heart’s Riley Taylor and Mary Schmidt.

Winning state, however, seemed unlikely for this pair back in the fall. This was their first state tournament and they had not played much together the preceding summer as first-year St. Aloysius tennis coach Rick Shields encouraged a strict regimen of individual play and instruction at Halls Ferry Park.

The work paid off for singles players Ashleigh Piazza and eighth grader Austin Mathis, who both made huge strides during this year. Shields paired Piazza and Mathis together in mixed doubles and the duo made it to the 1A finals.

They lost to a tough tandem from Sacred Heart 6-3, 6-1.

Putting Beesley and Mabry in the No. 2 doubles draw worked out great for Shields as well. They didn’t drop a game, beating Tupelo Christian’s Katie Berry and

Margaret Collins 6-0, 6-0 in the semifinals on Monday.

“They are a good team and they did good today,” Shields said. “I hope now that this inspires them to work more this summer and get even better.”

Beesley, a junior, and Mabry, a sophomore, said the happy talk is their way to get excited.

“It’s how we play. We get pumped,” Beesley said.

Still, it was a state title final.

The Flashes won the first set 7-5 behind some good play at the net. In the second set, they got up 3-1 but then Taylor and Schmidt made an adjustment. Schmidt, the best of the four girls on the court, began to press her attack.

“She started to get really good at the net,” Beesley said.

“We weren’t keeping the ball away from her as much,” Mabry said.

The adjustment started to take its toll.

“(Schmidt) started taking everything down the middle,” Shields said. “We needed to go around and over her.”

“We needed to keep it away and keep it in,” Beesley said.

That meant taking the ball to the outer lines. Beesley and Mabry broke Taylor’s serve in the first game of the deciding set. Beesley then held her serve, surviving a couple of deuce scores. They broke Schmidt to take a commanding 3-0 lead.

Shields, though, said it wasn’t over.

“When guys get up two breaks, it’s over because they can serve it out. But with girls, it means nothing. They have to play each point,” Shields said.

That was quickly proven true as Mabry lost her service game to bring Taylor and Schmidt back into the match. Fortunately for St. Al, Taylor was losing gas and could not hold serve. Up 4-1, Beesley and Mabry won their final service games to take the deciding set, 6-2.

“Coach Shields is a good coach, so we’ll be up there more this summer and go to the Ole Miss camp,” Beesley said, smiling while holding her state gold medal.

In mixed doubles, Piazza and Mathis reached the 1A final by beating Tupelo Christian’s Drew Clements and Briley Christman 6-1, 6-1.

In the title match against Sacred Heart’s John and Ashlia Fitzgerald, Piazza was broken on her first serve and the pair got down 3-1. The Fitzgeralds then served out the set 6-3 and then rolled in the second set, 6-1.

In other 1A play, St. Al’s No. 1 boys’ doubles team of Steven Cialone and Michael Foley lost to Greenville-St. Joe’s Brandon Faulk and Clay Curry, 7-6, 6-2.

In No. 2 boys’ doubles, Carlton Campbell and Aaron Mathis dropped a three-set semifinal to Sacred Heart’s Chris Wilkins and J.P. Andy 6-1, 3-6, 6-4.