Shell-shocked by the ending of their season, members of the Baylor girls’ soccer team stood on the field Friday night at CHI Memorial Stadium in East Ridge, crestfallen.
Tears were shed as the reality of a 2-0 loss to Harpeth Hall to set in, with the Nashville program’s victory in the Division II-AA title game preventing the Lady Red Raiders from winning what would have been their 10th TSSAA state championship in their 16th finals appearance.
A couple of members of the Baylor student section started singing the words to the school’s alma mater, which led the players to embrace and sway right and left as they sang along. Once that ended, they hugged and cried some more.
Baylor won its ninth state title in 2017, which was also its most recent finals appearance until this week. Harpeth Hall (13-0-3) – which beat another Chattanooga program Thursday, topping GPS 3-2 in a semifinal at Chattanooga Christian School – was in a title match for just the fourth time and added a second championship eight years after its first.
It took only 137 seconds for the Honeybears to get on the board Friday, with freshman Quinn Erim scoring the first of her two goals on an assist from Mary Roper. The second came with about 10 minutes to play, and the Lady Red Raiders (16-2-2) struggled to get into the flow of the game in between those scores.
“I thought we came out with too much nerves,” Baylor coach Curtis Blair said. “Then when we started to settle down and play the way we wanted to play, I thought we created some chances and did things we needed to do, but you just can’t keep digging yourself out of the hole, and I think it finally caught up to us.”
It was the second consecutive match Baylor had fallen behind early. Only in Thursday’s semifinal against Christ Presbyterian Academy, the Lady Red Raiders were able to rally in the second half on goals by Zoey Mize and Jada Cooper for a 2-1 win. Harpeth Hall never slowed its aggression, outshooting Baylor 13-7 and holding a 6-2 advantage in shots on goal.
The only Baylor players credited with shots on goal Friday were Mize and Melissa Oliveira, both coming in the first 15 minutes of the match.
Baylor loses six seniors, four of them starters.
“Our first camp, the first thing we said is that it’s about building relationships,” Blair said. “This team, every day they showed up, and they’ve gotten closer on the field and off the field, and they’ve built those relationships.
“That’s the most important thing to me: You want to keep producing, you want to keep winning, but at the end of the day it’s about those relationships, and this senior class has done a great job of leading us to do that. That was our goal at camp, and then every day we just went out and did it.”
CHI Memorial Stadium, the home of USL League One’s Chattanooga Red Wolves, is hosting all five TSSAA girls’ soccer finals this weekend after Baylor, CCS and GPS hosted earlier rounds of state. In the DII-A final earlier Friday, University School of Jackson beat Battle Ground Academy 1-0.
The other three finals are Saturday, with Alcoa facing Merrol Hyde in Class A at 11 a.m., Murfreesboro Central facing Page in AA at 1:30 p.m. and Bearden facing Houston in AAA at 4.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.