ROCHESTER — Mayo has never budged from its perch.

The Spartans girls tennis team began this season regarded as the top team in Class 2A and is now headed to the Tuesday-Wednesday state tournament the same way.

Only now, it is with an exclamation mark. Mayo is unbeaten (23-0) and despite having battled all of the state’s top teams, remains relatively untested.

Its closest dual all year was a 5-2 score, against both No. 2-ranked Edina and No. 3 Minnetonka. Carried by a deep lineup that also contains three of the state’s top-10 players — No. 2-ranked Claire Loftus, No. 5 Aoife Loftus and No. 9 Malea Diehn — Mayo looks primed to make school history. If it does the expected and wins the state title, it will be a first for a Mayo girls program that has reached state 26 of the last 27 years, but never won it all.

“What I’ve talked about to our players is to just control what they can control,” said Mayo coach Jeff Demaray, whose team begins the state tournament at 8 a.m. Tuesday at the University of Minnesota’s Baseline Tennis Center, against unseeded Brainerd.

“Our kids have handled being unbeaten just fine. But our goals are much higher than to be unbeaten (now). We want three things — to have a great time at state, learn life lessons, and the third thing is to win a state championship. But we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We need to take it one match at a time and do what we’ve done all year and do the little things that have worked.”

A year ago, the Spartans made it all the way to the state title round where they lost 5-2 to Minnetonka. Demaray regarded that Skippers team as one of the best he’d ever seen at the high school level. They were a decided favorite to win the state title and then got it done.

Now Mayo has the look of one of the state’s better teams ever, led by those three top-10 ranked players. As was true of Minnetonka last year, nobody has come close to beating Mayo this season. Now, the Spartans want to finish things. Demaray believes this team is primed to do just that.

“We are definitely peaking right now,” he said. “Each week, we keep getting better. Our goal is to now put it all together.”

Class AA girls tournament pairings

Last year wasn’t supposed to happen for the Lourdes girls tennis team. The state championship it won was supposed to go to Breck.

After all, the Mustangs had disposed of the Eagles by a 5-2 score during the regular season. They were also ranked No. 1. No matter, it happened anyway. Lourdes pulled off a surprise, beating Breck 4-3 in the championship dual to secure its first state girls tennis title since 2010.

“Last year was really fun, and some of that was because it wasn’t expected,” Lourdes coach Ben Maes said. “That makes it especially attractive when you win it and nobody is expecting it. The way it happened, it was really satisfying.”

Lourdes is now in the opposite position in a state tournament that begins Tuesday and ends Wednesday at Reed-Sweatt Tennis Center. This time, the Eagles are “expected” to win the title. At least that’s what it shows on paper. Lourdes has drawn the No. 1 seed, while Blake is No. 2. But Maes warns not to make too much of those seedings. In fact, he gives Blake — with its stacked singles lineup — the edge to win it all, not his team. The final state rankings had the teams tied for the No. 1 spot.

Maes also admits that the ideal position is to not be “expected” to win the title, all while knowing there is close to a 50-50 chance that you’ll do it.

What the top seed does for Lourdes is give it an easier path to the final. The Eagles face unseeded Luverne at 8 a.m. Tuesday, then are likely to play No. 4 St. James in Wednesday morning’s semifinals. Lourdes, Blake and No. 3 Pine City are all believed to have legitimate chances of winning the state title. Blake and Pine City will almost certainly meet in the semis.

Maes likes where his team is. He points to particular improvement at No. 2 doubles (Taylor Seelhammer and Ellie Leise) and No. 3 doubles (Kaydra Quimby and Ashley Wagester). That has helped make up for the graduation of Ryann Witter, the team’s top player a year ago and the state singles runner-up.

“Those No. 2 and 3 doubles teams have done very well over the course of the year,” Maes said. “Everyone has contributed very nicely this season. I feel like we can win at any position, at any time.”

This is an experienced team, with five key seniors — Caroline Daly, Elyse Palen, Erin Witter, Taylor Elliott, Katherine Sieve and Ellie Leise.

Class A girls tournament pairings