But there was something different about this serve on Sept. 27 at the Campbell County High School tennis courts in Gillette. This one was for the No. 1 girls singles state championship.

Nokes, a senior at Kelly Walsh, was no stranger to state championship matches. As a sophomore in 2021 she teamed with Avery Strand to win the No. 1 doubles title. In 2022 she and Bailey Collins won the No. 2 doubles title. Both doubles teams were undefeated for the state champion Trojans.

But this time Nokes was on her own. Across the net was Cheyenne Central’s Ashli Smedley, who was 16-0 on the season and had defeated Nokes in two sets back in August.

Smedley won the first set 6-4; Nokes took the second 6-2 to even the match. Leading 5-4 in the third, Nokes was serving for the match.

“I remember I played my first serve safe,” Nokes recalled of match point during an interview last week. “I just spun it to make sure it would go in, but I was super scared because I spun it probably more than I should have.”

The serve dropped over the net and Nokes waited for the return volley.

It never came.

“When I saw Ashli hit it into the net I stopped and for a second, I was like, ‘OK, let’s go play the next point,’” Nokes said. “You reset because you don’t think about the point that just happened. And then I realized that was the last point.

“Everyone was cheering, and I was exhausted because the match had lasted three hours. It was overwhelming, but I couldn’t have been happier.”

Fast forward four months and Nokes is busy cleaning at the 307 Tennis Club in Casper.

The club is where she spends most of her time after school and on weekends. After all, it’s here where she developed her love of the game. It’s also where she gets to spend time with her dad.

Eric Nokes owns the 307 Tennis Club and has coached eight KW singles and eight doubles state champions since 2017. His most recent state champ, though, is his favorite.

“It was definitely pretty special,” he said of watching Taylor win No. 1 singles. “I knew how hard she had worked, especially the past few years when she was practicing 12 months out of the year.

“Looking back, I was nervous so I couldn’t really tell you what happened on that last point besides Ashli missed a shot that she normally would make.”

Eric grew up around sports. His dad, Jack Nokes, was a longtime sports anchor for KTWO-TV in Casper and served as the public address announcer at University of Wyoming football games for 41 years before stepping down in November.

“I played all sports growing up, but tennis was the one I was good at and the one I won at,” Eric said. “So, I realized this was going to be the best sport for me.”

From the ages of 5 to 18, he trained at the same facility he now owns.

Like her dad, Taylor gravitated toward tennis at an early age.

“Tennis is just something that I have always done,” she said. “When I was 2 years old my mom would video me, and my dad would be saying, ‘C’mon, Tay! Just hit the ball! Just make contact with it!’ And I was just swinging the racket blindly and trying to make contact with the ball.

“But then I started taking lessons and my dad started coaching me,” she added. “Since then, there was never really a question that that’s what I wanted to do.”

Winning a state championship, no matter the sport, is never easy. It takes years of hard work and determination; athletes have to learn how to win as well as how to fail.

Luckily for Taylor, she was learning from someone who had experienced all of it.

Eric was a standout tennis player at Natrona County where he played No. 1 singles for three years (1991-93). He lost twice in the state championship match before finally breaking through and winning it all his senior season.

Thirty years later, he got to see his daughter hoist the championship plaque.

“The only set I lost my senior year was the first one at state, just like what happened to Taylor,” Eric said. “But once she won the second set, I felt like that would make a big difference. I trusted that she would be able to finish it off and do what she’s done in the past.

“Honestly, the realization that I had done it 30 years before … I didn’t even know until one of my good friends mentioned it to me after it had all happened. But I was happy for her more than anything because of all the hard work she had put in.”

Playing tennis came easy to Taylor. Playing at a championship level, however, took some time.

She admitted it wasn’t until “the last couple of years” when she developed the right mindset to accompany her on-court skills.

“I can sit here and say I wish I would have practiced harder when I was in middle school, but I didn’t really have the drive and I didn’t know that I definitely wanted it,” she said as her dad nodded in agreement. “When you’re younger you don’t know how to work as hard. After my sophomore year it was just routine to be practicing a lot and working toward my goal.”

Taylor’s development as a player on and off the court also was apparent to her dad/coach.

“I knew she was good,” he said. “But I could really see in the last two years that this is what she wanted to do, that she was willing to put in the time and the effort. Throughout the season we talked about goals and what needed to happen each match.

“Sometimes you achieve your goals and sometimes you don’t, and Taylor is not afraid of failure, which is really important. In the end, she pretty much accomplished all the goals we set for her.

“Now she gets to figure out what the next level is all about. Now we get to reset her goals because it will be even harder in college.”

Wednesday, Taylor will sign her National Letter of Intent to play tennis at Colorado Mesa University, a Division II school in Grand Junction.

Once again, she’s following in her dad’s footsteps. Eric was an all-conference player at the school, which was known as Mesa State College at the time.

“There’s a full-circle aspect to our stories,” Eric noted.

Even though Taylor will have to adjust to having another coach for the first time in her tennis career – although it should be noted that Buddy Johnson has been the Kelly Walsh head tennis coach for years – she knows her dad will only be a phone call or a text away.

The 400 miles from Casper to Grand Junction won’t break the bond that was formed all those years ago.

“My dad would push me, but not too much,” Taylor said. “He wanted it to be my decision that I wanted to practice and that I wanted to be good. He never made me go practice.”

Eric did keep Taylor on her toes, however.

“When I was in middle school, he would yell at me when I wasn’t moving my feet or I wasn’t playing hard,” Taylor admitted, looking at her dad. “And I would ask, ‘Dad, why are you getting mad at me?’ And he would say, ‘I’m not getting mad at you, your coach is getting mad at you because you need to work harder.’

“Once I understood that he was just coaching me and trying to push me it helped me more than it hurt me,” she added. “It just took me a couple of years to understand that.”

Eric admits he pushed Taylor harder than the other kids, but that was only because of the expectations he had for her. So, to see it pay off with a state singles championship and a college scholarship is just icing on the cake.

“These past couple of years were a pretty cool experience because we figured it out and we were on the same page,” he said. “I think we both started to respect each other a lot more. It was just a really cool thing that I’ll always remember because not every dad gets to have that with their kid.

“It allowed us to grow into a different relationship … there was an extra element that we got to experience. I’m going to be bummed when she leaves, and I don’t get to experience that anymore. I look forward to the next six to seven months before she takes off and we still get to have that relationship.”

Taylor nodded in agreement.

“I honestly really like having my dad as my coach,” she said. “We can go downstairs and watch the Australian Open, like we’re doing now and just getting to do things like that and him being around all the time gives me a slight advantage. And I really like having that.”