Rochester Mayo girls tennis wins Class 2A in Minnesota

The new thing was the only thing missing.

For the Rochester Mayo girls tennis team, their 5-2 victory over Edina in the Class 2A team final Wednesday at Baseline Tennis Center in Minneapolis — the Spartans’ second in a row — was as fulfilling as a championship should be.

After winning the first team title in school history in 2023, the Spartans retained much of the talent this season. This year marked Mayo’s 27th state tournament appearance and it ended as expected – in dominant fashion.

However, with talent came expectations, and high expectations have been known to derail many teams. For Mayo, however, the expectations were what they wanted. It meant they were good, really good, and everyone knew it.

“It’s true we had expectations, but I feel like it just helped us have confidence,” said Keely Ryder, Mayo’s senior captain and standout doubles player.

Ryder said they won their second straight team title in front of a horde of Mayo fans who made their way to Hwy. 52 supporting their hard-court heroes — over historic Edina, the program that won 19 straight state titles from 1997 to 2015 — made the win special.

“There’s definitely more energy in this win [than in the past]Ryder said. “We consistently made it to the state tournament, but we always felt like we knew we were going to be there [to lose]. Winning last year was really, really new and kind of surreal. This year we knew what we could do and we were just confident.”

Mayo finished the season a perfect 24-0 and is now 50-0 over the last two seasons. On Wednesday, they took inspiration from their star senior singles player, defending Class 2A state champion Claire Loftus. Loftus remained undefeated this season, winning all three games in the team tournament and losing only two games in three sets.