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Last Saturday, three days before his team was to play in its first girls' tennis state tournament, Holy Family coach Jack Roach sat down and created a poster.

"It said, 'Why not us?' " senior co-captain Gabby Carter said. "And that's what we've focused on ever since. Why not us?"

As it turns out, no one had an answer. The Fire outlasted defending champion Breck 4-3 in the semifinals on the strength of a 3 ½ hour, three-set victory by junior Grace Sperr, then torched Virginia 6-1 to win the Class 1A state championship .

The championship was the culmination of a plan set forth by Roach, a former University of Minnesota women's head tennis coach, when he took over the Holy Family program three years ago.

Considering how far they came in such a short time that even the players weren't sure what they could accomplish, the poster was a stroke of genius.

"We all really came together this year," Carter said. "We worked harder, we hit on off days. But I never really thought we could beat Breck until Jack brought it up. 'Why not us?' kind of became our motto."

Said Roach: "Even here, they had to believe they could win."

It might never have happened had Sperr, a junior co-captain, not summoned the reserve to get past Breck's Anna Zumwinkle in the semifinals. The two teams already were deadlocked 3-3 when Sperr and Zumwinkle began the third set.

Using patience she never knew she had, Sperr waited out Zumwinkle's slow-down tactics and took control in the third and deciding set.

"I like to play faster, so that was a little frustrating," she said. "I played my game in the third set, and I'm glad I won that way. "

Sperr's match in the final against Virginia went much smoother, with her winning 6-1, 6-0. With a championship to celebrate, Sperr gave the Fire's motto an appropriate revision.

"It's no long a question, it's a statement," she said. "It's not 'Why not us?' It's 'It Is Us!' We did it."