NATCHEZ — Although the scoreboard might have shown dominance, Cathedral School tennis senior Lessley Dooley was not too pleased with the way she played en route to a district championship.

“I’m still upset about it,” Dooley said. “It doesn’t matter about the win. It matters on how I perform and that was terrible in my eyes.”

Dooley won her district title in two sets — the first being 6-1 and the last being 6-0. Yet, she knew she could have done better.

Throughout her match, Dooley would either shout, “That makes me mad” or “I’m frustrated” because she would either hit the ball in the net or out of bounds.

“I just let myself get worked up,” Dooley said. “Then I get mad at myself and then I mess up.

“I yell a lot. That’s a big problem.”

While Dooley did yell often during her match, she credits the frustration on Monday to getting mad at herself and not having coach Beth Foster on the sidelines — as she was coaching other Cathedral players during her game.

“Coach Foster helps me (not get worked up) most of the time,” Dooley said. “She wasn’t over there today but when she is, she tells me to get it together. She yells at me too. It helps when I have someone telling me what to do.”

And coach Foster knows that she typically needs to talk Dooley out of getting down on herself.

“She is that kind of person,” Foster said. “She doesn’t like giving up games. When she doesn’t feel like she is up to peak performance, she gets down on herself and you kind of have to talk her out of it.

“She is hard on herself. Harder than anyone else.”

Moving forward, Dooley knows that she can’t get upset with herself when it comes South State time because she believes that could cost her in the end.

Dooley also said she needs to work on her placement. That means knowing when to kill a ball into the back corners or when to hit a slice to place the ball in the front of the court.

But at the end of the day, she knows she has to be patient.

“If I don’t get worked up, I will be OK,” Dooley said.

And if Dooley does play with a little more patience down at South State, Foster believes that Dooley could make some noise.

“Absolutely,” Foster said. “That’s what hurts her — when she gets frustrated. When  shegets frustrated and down on herself, tennis is a complete head game, when you get down on yourself it is hard to get out of that. So we try to talk her out of that. Even if she is losing, I tell her she is losing because she is in her head.”

Ultimately, however, Dooley was happy to be a champion and Foster is as well, as Dooley’s win helped the Green Wave capture a girls district title.

“Her win and my singles No. 2 win helped push us to win girls overall,” Foster.

ACCS girls and mixed doubles claim district titles

The Rebels girls doubles — Danyel Weir and Caitlyn Gamberi — and mixed doubles — Kaci Guedon and Austin Heard — both won their respective district titles Monday.

For Weir and Gamberi, they said their championship game was a little rocky despite winning in two sets. They both said the first set gave them troubles because they were having difficulties keeping the ball in play.  As for Guedon and Heard they both said their title win was a breeze.

Both teams said they are looking forward to competing at South State. But before that, what they need to work on could be summed up into one word.

“Practice,” Weir said.