NATCHEZ — For Cathedral School’s tennis team, the semifinals are actually the finals.

After finishing second in its district, Cathedral will head to Hattiesburg for the team South State playoffs to face Sacred Heart, the winner of its district.

Cathedral tennis coach Marla Beard said making it to South State this year meant overcoming the loss of several key players from last year’s team.

“We lost some valuable players, such as my daughter Davis Beard and Adam Blackwell, to graduation,” Marla said. “We also lost Blake Smith, who transferred to ACCS, and Cami Willard, who transferred to Trinity.

“We’re a young team, but we’ve done great considering. We come out here every year expecting to get to South State.”

And Marla said the South State tournament is a de-facto state tournament.

“The competition from the south is typically better than from the north,” she said.

Look no further than the Cathedral-St. Aloysius rivalry, where St. Al recently edged Cathedral 4-3 to win its district.

“We have to very good, evenly-matched teams,” Marla said. “We had three courts and they had three courts, and two different matches went to the third set for the tie-break.

“We lost the rubber match, so we were right there until the end.”

Cathedral certainly has tradition in tennis, having won a state championship outright four years ago and tying with Sacred Heart three years ago, Marla said.

“Us, Sacred Heart and St. Al have always been very competitive,” Beard said.

Junior Madeline Beard, Marla’s daughter, has proven competitive herself, winning a state championship in doubles in seventh, eighth and 10th grade, and a singles state championship in ninth grade. She will compete in the singles state championship May 9 and 10 in Jackson.

Joining Madeline will be Dwain Perkins and Luke Whitaker for the No. 2 boys doubles state championship, and Sarah Beth Willard and Taylor Beesley for the No. 2 girls state championship.

Marla said Natchez has grown into a tennis town for young people as she watched her children grow up.

“It’s a huge tennis town, especially for adults, but when my two kids played in USTA tennis tournaments, they were the only active ones at the time (from Natchez),” Beard said.

“Ever since (Duncan Park Tennis Director) Henry (Harris) got here, there’s been much more attention to high school and tournament tennis locally.”