Entering the 40th year of KSHSAA girls tennis state tournaments, no Olathe school had ever won a tennis state title as a team, in either boys or girls tennis.

That’s due in large part to Shawnee Mission East and Blue Valley North combining for 53 state titles in that time, including 31 6A state titles in girls tennis over the first 39 years.

Shawnee Mission East was even the five-time reigning champs coming off of last year’s 6A state title.

But suddenly there came a tapping, as of some one gently rapping, rapping at the Lancers’ door as they hosted this year's 6A girls tennis state tournament at Harmon Park in Prairie Village. 

‘Tis some visitor … it was the Olathe Northwest Ravens, who quit tapping and simply busted down the door to end Shawnee Mission East’s streak and their own school district’s drought, which lasted an (Edgar Allan Poe length) lifetime.

Olathe Northwest swept the singles and doubles state titles on the way to 51 team points, 18 ahead of a state runner-up Shawnee Mission East.

Blue Valley North scored 19 points to take third, edging out Blue Valley Northwest and Blue Valley West by just two points. The Mustangs are the only other team besides Shawnee Mission East to win a girls tennis state title during the previous 22 years, which predates Olathe Northwest opening in 2003.

The Ravens had previously finished third at state each of the last two years.

Olathe Northwest head coach Drew Smith appreciated the fact that it was the two 6A juggernauts finishing second and third, looking up to them as his Ravens hoisted up their state championship trophy.

“It's a wonderful feeling,” Smith said. “I'm so proud that this is the first state championship for any Olathe tennis team, boys or girls, in district history. That's so big and that moment, the weight of that, is not lost on me.

“It really feels like taking down the tyrants, I guess, of girls tennis.”

As the only team with all four of its entries alive on Day 2, Smith’s squad knew it had its long-awaited championship nearly wrapped up.

But for senior Mithila Dixit in singles and a senior tandem of Hannah Carney and Riley Terhune in doubles, they wanted to make sure this state tournament would be one they’d remember evermore as “the best season ever.”
 

Dixit would earn a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Blue Valley North senior Shelby Smith in the finals of the singles bracket. Shortly thereafter, Carney and Terhune clinched the doubles state title with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Blue Valley West senior Aashritha Musti and sophomore Chandana Vijaykumar.

“I was in tears when Mithila won the singles title and in tears when Hannah and Riley won the doubles title,” Smith said. “The expectations were there and just the way they did it, the way they really dominated. Other than that semifinal, which showed a lot of grit for the doubles team, everything else was never in doubt.”

For Dixit, her victory over Smith avenged her only loss in her lone season of high school tennis. 

Dixit played in the United States Tennis Association, or USTA, circuit for the last three years before she joined the Olathe Northwest team this summer. That was shortly after she had finished squaring away her college recruiting process.

Dixit committed to play at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. She said her entire recruiting process was long and complicated, but her time being recruited by the Air Force was not like that at all.

“It was in April only like two or three weeks after talking to school, I just really loved it,” Dixit said.

After making her commitment, it would just be a couple months later when she also decided to play for the Ravens during her senior year, alongside some old friends.

“I've trained with Hannah and Riley for a couple years now,” Dixit said. “Then I'm really close to Emery (Rand) because I work with her dad Eric as a coach. Me and Sammy (Van Zante) have just known each other through school, and me and Heidi (Baillos) have just known each other through USTA, just through tournaments and stuff. So I definitely knew everyone going in. I knew it would be a fun team.”

But when Dixit faced Smith on Sept. 24 during a tournament at the same Harmon Park facility, she had played only nine matches, in which she dropped just two games, as a member of the Ravens. Smith ended that hot start for Dixit’s high school career by earning a 8-5 win over her.
 

“That was one of my first matches here, and Shelby played great,” Dixit said. “ So I was nervous. I just couldn't find my targets and she was hitting all her shots, so she definitely was the winner that day. Like, she played really well. She deserved that.”

Dixit’s coach was not very concerned with that result.

“When Mithila is on, she's as good as I've ever seen play high school tennis in the state of Kansas,” Smith said. “I think that early season match against Smith, she was tight, she was anxious, she felt the weight of everything.

“Coming in (at state) sort of as on paper, the underdog, but in all of our hearts and minds, we knew what she was capable of.”

Dixit reached state with a 25-1 record, earning the No. 2 seed behind Smith after the latter posted a 20-1 record with no losses to Kansas opponents.

Dixit dropped one game in her first set of her opening match at state against Derby’s Ella Boline, but won every game on her way to semifinals. Waiting for her was Shawnee Mission East senior Ishya Bhavsar, who finished as the 6A state runner-up last season.

Dixit had already earned an 8-1 victory over Bhavsar at the Sunflower League tournament and a 6-2, 6-2 victory over her at regionals last week. This semifinals match played out much the same way, with Dixit earning a 6-2, 6-3 victory to clinch her spot in the finals.

Now Dixit got her chance to avenge her only loss this season.

Not only was Dixit ready, she overwhelmed her opponent as she only dropped a game in each set on the way to clinching the 6A singles state title.

As her opponent tried to turn powerful shots into winners, Dixit kept finding a way to return the ball and extend rallies throughout the match.
 

“Shelby plays a unique style and she hits the snot out of the ball,” Smith said. “If you can’t get around the court and keep her on the court, then she’s going to beat you.”

For Dixit, she doesn't feel like she had to change much of her game to get such a radically different result from her first match with Smith.

“I think it was more that it was just tuning up my game the next couple weeks and trusting my own tennis over the years of work I've put in,” Dixit said. “So I knew that if I can play well, it'll be a good result.”

Dixit remained composed throughout her match, and even the moments directly after match point. It wasn’t until she walked the pathway between courts her expression changed. That’s where her Ravens teammates were able to blockade her exit and swarm her in celebration.

It was that flock of Ravens support which Dixit has found to be the best part of her choice to compete for her high school team as a senior after previously playing in the USTA circuit the last three years.

“Everything being local, I've had so many people, like my friends in school, come watch me and just people that I always talk about that I'm going to tennis practice, but they've never seen me play,” Dixit said. “I am pretty sure every time I played anywhere I had one or two friends there from school or something, someone came, family, friends to watch. That was really special to me. I felt like I had a lot of support.”

The crowd watching Dixit’s match is also what stood out to her coach during this finals match.

“This was the biggest crowd I've ever seen watching a match at a Kansas high school tennis tournament,” Smith said. “Just to see her be able to kind of prove it to everyone that she is at the top of the mountain this year was a pretty awesome feeling.”

After Dixit clinched her singles title, the crowd shifted over to the next court where the doubles final had just started.
 

Carney and Terhune reached the quarterfinals without dropping a game before facing their teammates, senior Samantha Van Zante and freshman Emery Rand. Van Zante and Rand were able to snag a few games, but Carney and Terhune ultimately moved on with a 6-2, 6-1 victory.

That’s when the Ravens senior duo faced its toughest test of the tournament. Carney and Terhune ran into Shawnee Mission East senior Breanna Quigley and sophomore Helen Stechschulte in the semifinals. These four players had battled each other other times this season, including in the league and regional finals.

Carney and Terhune won 6-0, 6-0 at Sunflower League, but their regional final the next week turned into a tough 7-5, 7-5 battle.

Quigley and Stechschulte closed the distance even more in the state semifinals as the Lancers duo were able to force a tiebreaker in back-to-back sets. Carney and Terhune held them off both times to earn a 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-5) victory. 

They were even trailing 5-2 in the tiebreaker of the second set, only to close reel off five straight to slam the door shut on the Lancers duo.

“We were a little bit nervous at that point, but I think we just decided to take a few deep breaths and just trust our shots,” Carney said. “We knew that if it went to a third set that was gonna be a lot of work.

Carney pointed to those tiebreaks as one of the few moments at the state tournament when she and Terhune really started to feel the pressure of the moment.

“We won both sets in tie breaks, that's not easy to do,” Carney said. “It's very nerve wracking and especially because we have been working towards the state title for so long. We wanted to make it to that final really, really badly.”

Terhune agreed, pointing to the duo’s four years playing doubles together as being the key factor in them navigating that situation so well.

“Shawnee Mission East is always the biggest competition for us, and they're super consistent,” Terhune said. “I think part of it was just being smart and the fact that we've played doubles together all four years. We definitely just felt comfortable. I think that definitely helps with high pressure situations like the tiebreakers.”
 

 

Smith was not surprised by how close that match ended up being.

“When you're skilled tennis players, the more times you play generally the closer the results are gonna get,” Smith said. “We were playing just well enough to win and the nerves were definitely kicking in.

“The last two years, they’ve finished just shy of making that final and then finished fourth.”

But those close-big-no-cigar moments provided the Ravens tandem with the experience necessary to know how to get through those tight moments this season.

“We know how to step up when we need to in those high pressure, tight situations,” Carney said. “Things don't always go our way, or one of us will be not playing the way they want to, but we just know each other so well. We know how to get each other to lock in. We know how to get each other motivated and just find a way. Basically that's all we do is we just find a way to win and close it out.”

Terhune added: “We've played together so long that we kind of know what to say to each other and that's the best part about doubles is you're not by yourself out there. So if I make an atrocious forehand, Hannah is always there to say, ‘It's okay, next one,’ and vice versa.”

Carney and Terhune made sure to not let themselves have a drop off after finally clinching a finals appearance in their third try, and in such a thrilling match. They knew they still had a tough opponent left ahead in Blue Valley West’s Musti and Vijaykumar.

“That's the big thing you worry about is they'd never made it to the final before and that was a very emotional rollercoaster of a match that they had to do everything they could to win,” Smith said.

Instead, Carney and Terhune fired out to 3-0 start each of the two sets. The Jaguars duo had try to fight back each time, relying heavily on the net game of Vijaykumar, who was playing through an ankle injury.
 

These four players had faced off twice during the regular season. Musti and Vijaykumar won a 8-7 (9) victory during a tournament on Sept. 17 at CBAC. Carney and Terhune even the score with an 8-5 win a week later at Harmon Park.

In the rivalry’s first best-of-five sets match during state, Smith said he saw much of the same things happening on the court as the previous battles.

“They saw that team twice earlier this year and hurt ankle or not, they didn’t play much different than they did earlier in the year,” Smith said. “Vijaykumar, she’s the best net player in the tournament. She’s the best pure net-playing doubles player in the tournament.”

With that, his Ravens duo had a simple goal: hit it away from the person at the net and get ready for some long rallies.

“But both partners (for the Jaguars) were doing a great job of combating that strategy and keeping the ball in play against us as well,” Smith said. “It came down to if (Vijaykumar) is going to attack, we need to attack, too.” 

Carney and Terhune stepped up their aggressiveness to match Vijaykumar’s poaching at the net, were able to close out both sets early, avoiding even the thought of more tiebreakers. With the 6-3, 6-2 victory, Carney and Terhune delivered the team’s second state championship celebration of the day.

“I would say it is the perfect way for us to close out our senior year because we've been working towards this since we were freshmen,” Carney said. “We've been partners for four years. I can't think of a better way.”

With those singles and doubles titles, the Ravens single-handedly doubled the number of players from their school district to win individual state titles in tennis. 

Dixit, Carney and Terhune join Olathe South’s Haley Craig, 6A singles champion in 2005, as the only Olathe players to win an individual state title in girls tennis. In boys tennis, Olathe Northwest’s J.T. Christian winning the 6A singles title in 2006 and Olathe West’s Brett Seaton winning the 5A singles title in 2018 are the only other champions from Olathe since tennis became one of KSHSAA’s sanctioned sports in 1985.

In addition to the state championship victories in singles and doubles, the Ravens also advanced their other singles and doubles entries to the fifth-place match in each of those brackets.
 

Junior Heidi Baillos reached the quarterfinals in singles before suffering a 6-2, 5-7, 6-1 loss to Olathe West junior Lindsay Ruder. Baillos navigated her way through the backside of the bracket, earning a 8-5 win over Free State junior Cami Lee to start Day 2 and followed up with an 8-4 win over Blue Valley senior Morgan Zuba. 

In the fifth-place match, Baillos faced off with Maize senior Rylee Frye. These two were already familiar as Frye bounced Baillos from the backside of the state bracket in 2022, when Baillos played for Mill Valley and when both of their programs were in 5A.

This time, Baillos earned an 8-4 victory to finish in fifth place.

After Van Zante and Rand had their teammates send them to the backside of this year’s doubles bracket, the Ravens’ No. 2 doubles team earned an 8-4 win over Shawnee Mission Northwest junior Syra Honargohar and sophomore Erin O’Neal. Van Zante and Rand followed up with an 8-0 win over Olathe South seniors Reilly Bingesser and Macy Caldwell to reach the fifth-place match.

Shawnee Mission East junior Catherine Beltrame and freshman Molly McDermed were able to deny the Ravens at least one part of its dream finish at this year’s 6A state meet. Beltrame and McDermed earned the 8-4 victory to push Van Zante and Rand into a sixth-place finish.

But Van Zante and Rand wouldn’t have to wait too long to be all smiles again and celebrating with their state championship winning teammates. Van Zante and Rand even delivered a dab celebration after they received their sixth-place medals.

In terms of celebrations though, it was Olathe Northwest assistant coach Joel Johns who may have turnt up the most for the medals and trophy presentation. Johns donned a pink tutu and wore it over his clothes throughout the team’s photo sessions with the state trophy.

Why a pink tutu? That’s a fun bit that started at the beginning of the season.
 

Johns, who joined the team two years ago, said he realized early on that this was going to be a “super special year” for this team. Because of that, on the first day of practice, the players were in for a surprise.

“We all of a sudden hear this music on the speakers and then out comes Johns suited up with his pink tutu,” Carney said.

Johns had originally got pink shoes before unveiling special “Olathe Northwest Lady Ravens” gear, including sweatshirts, with the color choice adding a little more flare than the team’s traditional blue-and-black color scheme. The pink tutu was just an elevation of that pink swag to make this year look as unique as it felt to the coaches and players.

With something special brewing after Day 1 of the state tournament, Johns said he knew it was time to bust out the pink tutu one more time.

“I'm all cool wearing a pink tutu,” Johns said. “I'm all good with it and whatever makes them happy is what I'll need to do. It's all about what kind of amazing ride we have just had and we made it to this day.”

Carney and Terhune both credited Johns as being one of the reasons the team has been able to keep having fun and avoid feeling the pressure of chasing the team’s first state title this season. They said he helps remind them that tennis is just a game at the end of day, so why play if you’re not having fun.

“I've known Johns since my freshman year when I had my e-comm class with him,” Carney said. “Since then he's always been one of my favorite teachers. He's just genuinely such a sweet soul and he's so uplifting and cares so much about each of us individually.”

Terhune’s introduction to Johns was its own surprise.
 

“I was in his class on my birthday and I didn't know who he was at the time because he wasn't on the team yet, and he just handed me a can of tennis balls and he is like, ‘Happy birthday Riley.’” Terhune said. “Then we got into a conversation about tennis and he dropped the bomb that he would be the assistant coach the next year.

“He's just always been an amazing addition to the team, keeps things casual, less stressful. He's always here to have fun.”

That fun extended from the start of the season throughout the team’s long championship celebration on the court of the same reigning champs that the Ravens had dethroned.

Dixit only got to experience the one year of the Ravens fighting to break through for the first state title, but she also enjoyed every second of it.

“I'm really happy for our team winning the state title and just myself, I'm really happy with the whole season,” Dixit said.

The rest of the Ravens are happy that Dixit and Baillos, who transferred to Olathe Northwest after previously playing for Mill Valley, joined the team as newcomers. And in actuality, Dixit and Bailos were already old friends with the seniors on this year's team. Carney and Terhune even recall playing tennis with both of those players going all the way back to elementary school.

“I have photos of me and Heidi playing doubles together against Hannah,” Terhune said.

They reconnected at the perfect time.

“(Dixit and Baillos) joining was honestly so exciting for the team,” Carney said. “It just helped us have such a positive outlook on the season because we've all grown up playing tennis together.”

Carney was unequivocal in how she would describe her senior year with this group.

“I would just say the best season ever,” Carney said. “Genuinely, high school tennis has been such a great experience for me. I honestly didn't think I'd enjoy it half as much as I did, but the bonds you make with your team and your coaches are something you'll cherish all of your life, at least in my experience.”