Earlier this season, La Salle's top doubles team learned a lesson. On Sunday, that paid off.

PAWTUCKET — The 2023 RIIL Girls Tennis Doubles Championship match was a David-vs.-Goliath matchup, but in this story, the Goliath learned from a lesson it had received earlier.

After a tough match two weeks ago, La Salle’s Eliza Barker and Alisha Chowdhry went into the doubles state tourney focused on the task at hand. In Sunday’s final, they were up against history-makers in Narragansett’s Lara Gooding and Ambujam Lohmann, but that didn’t change the game plan.

It took the Rams a few games to get rolling, but once they had momentum, they never let it go. The 6-3, 6-1 win was the second-straight doubles title for Chowdhry and the first for Barker and it happened because they understood the difference between showing up to win and actually playing that way.

“It feels really good,” Barker said. “We’ve been working hard all year and we really wanted to get this title because it’s exciting.”

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“We were definitely nervous going into the first set because we had never played them before and had never seen them before because they’re in a different division,” Chowdhry said. “We figured it out.”

Barker and Chowdhry started figuring things out after a tough match against North Kingstown from which the duo came away with a win, but didn’t quite play up to par. After the match, La Salle coach Tom Martin told the players that if they didn’t come to play every match, just qualifying for the state tournament would be difficult. The two took Martin’s words to heart.

“Definitely anger,” Barker said of her feelings after the 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 win over NK’s Ruby Bigda and Candace Zangari. “We knew that wasn’t our best playing, so we pushed each other more and more. Every practice, we started moving our feet and everything and it helped us out.”

The Rams opened the doubles tournament with a clean sheet on Friday, then came away with two straight-sets victories in Saturday’s quarterfinals and semifinals, earning their spot in the finals.

While there was some familiarity with the opponents in the previous two rounds, Barker and Chowdhry didn’t know what to expect from Gooding and Lohmann.

It’s clear no one in the doubles tournament did either, and maybe the players weren’t quite sure themselves.

Gooding and Lohman earned an upset win in their first match, taking down North Kingstown’s No. 2 team, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4. In the quarterfinals, the Mariners dispatched another Division I pairing, defeating Mt. Hope’s top team in straight sets.

They followed that win with their biggest victory of the season, beating Bigda and Zangari in three sets, 6-4, 0-6, 6-2, to become what is believed to be the first non-Division I team to earn a spot in the doubles title match.

“The first games, we were pretty confident in ourselves,” Gooding said. “Then we realized it was going to get harder in the semifinals and the finals.”

“It was really fun and exciting to get here,” Lohmann said. “We played a bunch of really good matches along the way, so it was fun meeting friends and getting to know people along the way.”

Barker and Chowdhry weren’t taking Gooding and Lohmann lightly and from the start of the match, it was clear the Narragansett duo didn’t take the long drive up to Slater Park for just a moral victory.

The two teams split the first four games and, after La Salle won the next two, Narragansett grabbed the next to cut its deficit to 4-3.

But it was in that moment that Barker and Chowdhry went back to what they learned in that North Kingstown match. The duo settled in, played confident and smart tennis and closed out the next two games to win the first set. Momentum from that win carried over into the second set with two wins and, while Gooding and Lohmann won the next to make it 2-1, Barker and Chowdhry were in control the rest of the way before closing out the next four to claim the title.

“Our nerves were leaving us,” Barker said. “We knew we could get it done; we just had to push ourselves harder.”

“We had to figure out their strengths and weaknesses because we had never seen them before,” Chowdhry said. “After a few games, we kind of figured it out, got in a rhythm, and took it from there.”

The loss didn’t change how impressive Gooding's and Lohmann’s run to the final was. Making it to the final is difficult enough, but to do it out of Division II with no familiarity with any of your opponents makes it even more impressive.

“We just played it match by match and tried our best. I think we believed in ourselves,” Lohmann said. “[The final] was not what we hoped for but it was still fun playing.”

“I was just a little more stressed because of the pressure of the finals and the end all, be all,” Gooding said. “At the end of the day, me and [Lohmann] have been playing the season and our teamwork works really well together.

“To come here as the underdogs, it’s just really exciting. It’s a loss in the final, but it’s still great.”

The Narragansett duo still has a lot to play for. The Mariners are 10-1 in Division II, with a 4-2 loss to undefeated South Kingstown as its lone blemish. Narragansett will be chasing its first team championship since 2013.

La Salle will also be chasing a team title. The Rams are undefeated and Barker and Chowdhry hope to find continued success as La Salle chases its 10th straight state title.

“We’re definitely excited about this win, but we know we have two more matches coming up in the regular season,” Chowdhry said. “We’re just looking forward to what’s next, which is our next practice and then our next match.”

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: La Salle's Eliza Barker and Alisha Chowdhry win 2023 RIIL doubles title