United South Central’s doubles team of Linsey Thisius and Kia Legred are headed back to state.

After cruising past the first and quarterfinal rounds of the Section 2A tournament on Thursday, Thisius and Legred advanced past a team from Sibley East on Monday in the semifinals and a squad from St. Peter in the finals.

“They (Thisius and Legred) were the No. 1 seed, and they defended their title,” said USC coach Gary Hagen.

Thisius, a senior, and Legred, a junior, beat Sibley East’s Alli Harter and Faith Young 6-1 and 6-1. Against Val Bresnahan and Rachel Huber from St. Peter, Thisius and Legred won 6-3, 7-6 and 7-3 in the tiebreaker.

Last season, Thisius and Legred qualified for state and beat Kennedy Sommerfeld and Kalley Spreiter from Litchfield in the first round 6-2, 6-4 before being eliminated in the quarterfinals by Grace Zumwinkle and Kendall Kozikowski of Breck, the eventual state runner-up.

Last year’s state champion was also a team from Breck that consisted of two seniors who graduated.

The first round of the Class A state tournament will be at 10 a.m. Oct. 23 at the Reed-Sweat Family Tennis Center in Minneapolis. The quarterfinals will be at 2 p.m. the same day. The semifinal round will be at 8 a.m. Oct. 24, and the championship will be at 11:30 a.m. later that day.