St. Aloysius girls’ tennis team capped off a successful season with a second-place finish at the MAIS Class AAA tournament on Wednesday, with Taylor Chewning and Ashley Jarrett winning a decisive victory in the in the No. 2 girl’s doubles division.

St. Al won the Class AAA team championship last season, and coach Rick Shields said the back-to-back top-two finishes solidified its standing as a tennis power.

“It’s big because we’re a small school, a little more of a baseball school, so every time we win something like that, the other kids in school want to be part of a winning program,” Shields said. “So hopefully we can find a few more players, we’ll train them to play, and we’ll keep winning. Winning breeds winning.”

Chewning and Jarratt know a thing or two about winning.

The duo finished second in the 2016 Class AAA No. 2 girls’ doubles tournament, then won it last year. They returned Wednesday looking for a repeat and got it without dropping a set.

In the first round, Chewning and Jarratt knocked off Indianola Academy 6-3, 6-0, and then battled Heritage Academy’s Emily Howard and Abby Amos in the championship match. Chewning and Jarratt won that one 6-2, 6-4.

Chewning and Jarratt had taken on Heritage earlier this season and won in a tiebreaker, so they knew it would be a battle to the finish.

“It was good. We were really nervous about our matches because we knew Heritage was a good team, but we felt pretty prepared for it,” Jarratt said.

Chewning said their win in the semifinals helped get them into a rhythm before they held off Heritage’s comeback attempt.

“We didn’t get tense and we just played our game,” Chewning said. “A big thing that prepared us was our No. 1 doubles team, Anne Stewart and Elise Piazza. Every day we got to play matches against them, and they’re the best doubles team we know, which was a lot of help.”

St. Al had several other entries in the tournament, but only Chewning and Jarratt reached the championship rounds of their respective brackets.

In No. 1 girls’ singles, Adrienne Eckstein lost two close sets in the semifinals against Kirk Academy’s Morgan Claire Rose 7-5, 6-4.

Eckstein, who won a mixed doubles championship with her older brother Luke as a freshman, was playing in the state tournament in singles for the first time.

In No. 1 girls’ doubles, Elise and Anne Stewart Piazza also fell in the semifinals, losing 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 to Heritage Academy’s Stella Nichols and Haley Barker.

Shields said the team was proud of how the Piazza sisters played, but definitely wanted them to get the win in their senior season.

Elise Piazza won the No. 2 girls singles championship last season.

“It was tough because they worked hard and they’ve been good for the team for years,” Shields said. “Their leadership and hard work has really encouraged the other players to play harder. We really wanted them to win that. It stung, but that’s the way tennis is. You’re going to win some and you’re going to lose some.”

In No. 2 boys’ doubles, Ryan Jarratt and Ethan Naron fell in the semifinals to Heritage Academy’s Drew Knittig and Andrew Kelly 6-1, 6-1.

Last year’s run to the team championship was powered by the individual victories of Elise Piazza and Chewning and Jarratt. In the MAIS state tournament, teams are awarded one point for each match victory. The semifinal losses this time closed that path to victory, but the Lady Flashes were still able to collect enough points to finish second.

Heritage Academy won the girls’ team championship, and Laurel Christian took the boys’ title.

Overall, Shields was happy that the girls were able to get second place and said he liked the way all of his players fought.

“Overall, about 15 schools were represented here, and we should’ve made Vicksburg proud,” Shields said.