The Lady Irish capture three tennis titles, and Keegan Smith brings home a track first-place finish
Spring-sports state titles again came Knoxville Catholic High School’s way as the Lady Irish tennis players won an individual, a doubles, and a team championship, and track standout Keegan Smith captured a 1,600-meter-run crown.
Junior Maeve Thornton won her second straight singles state championship in the Division II, Class AA finals held May 26-27 at the Adams Tennis Complex in Murfreesboro. Maeve swept Riley Collins of Ensworth 6-2, 6-1 to win the title after advancing in the semifinals 8-2 over Avery Franklin of Ensworth.
Sophomore Eleni Liakonis and freshman Lillie Murphy clinched the doubles state title with a 7-6 (8-6), 6-3 win over Helen Guerry and Agda Laakso of Baylor. Eleni and Lillie advanced to the finals with an 8-1 win over Mimi Bowen and Lenna Hamdan of Ensworth in the semifinals.
The Lady Irish also won their second consecutive team state championship, besting Baylor 4-0 in the finals and Ensworth 4-1 in the semifinals.
In the finals, Maeve won her match 6-2, 6-2 while Lillie triumphed 6-1, 6-1. Eleni swept her opponent 6-4, 6-3. In doubles, Maeve and Gigi Sompayrac won 8-6 while Eleni and Lilli were victorious 8-3.
Maeve (6-2, 6-2), Lillie (6-1, 6-0), and Eleni (6-3, 6-2) all won in singles in the semifinals. The doubles teams of Maeve and Gigi (8-1) and Eleni and Lillie (8-0) also won.
Keegan Smith outdistances the field in the state 1,600 run.
Freshman Keegan won the 1,600 state finals in a time of 4 minutes, 20.81 seconds, besting runner-up Hugh Carlson of McCallie (4:22.50) by more than a second and a half. Keegan placed fifth in the 3,200 run in a time of 9:54.07 in the state meet, held May 25 at Dean Hayes Stadium on the campus of Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro.
For the Lady Irish, Elly Jones placed fifth in the 100 dash in a time of 13.07 seconds May 25 at MTSU. Mary Oakley Robertson took fifth in the 400 dash in time of 59.75 seconds.
Elly placed fourth (26.56 seconds) and Mary sixth (27.05) in the 200 dash.
The Knoxville News Sentinel honored Eleni, Lillie, Maeve, and Keegan by naming them to their All-PrepXtra teams for their respective sports.
