LEWISTON — Getting to the top of the mountain is rarely an easy climb. It takes that last extra push and sometimes, even that is not enough.
After exciting wins in the regional finals earlier this week, both tennis teams from Lewiston faced uphill challenges in the Class A state championships held at Lewiston High School on Saturday.
The girls were facing the defending state champs from Falmouth, while the boys were attempting to topple a talented and unbeaten Thornton Academy team.
Both Blue Devils teams hoped to challenge their heavily-favored foes, but fell in both matches by 5-0 scores.
It was the third straight state title for Falmouth, which beat Lewiston last year.
“They’re just tennis champions,” Lewiston coach Anita Murphy said. “They’re so good and so strong. They very well skilled.”
It was the first state title for the Thornton boys. Lewiston had hoped to be able make it interesting against the Trojans, but some early wins allowed Thornton to gain momentum.
“We were hoping that we could nip them at doubles because our doubles have been playing pretty well lately,” Lewiston coach Tom LeBlond said. “It looked like that. They both lost the first sets in tiebreakers. Give credit to Thornton. They’ve got a really solid team from top to bottom. They had three strong singles players and their doubles players are all veterans and have played a lot.”
It was the second straight trip to the states for the Lewiston girls and 19th overall. Trying to topple Falmouth was no easy task. Murphy said she just tried to get her team prepared to play their best against the Yachtsmen.
“I tried to prepare them mentally,” Murphy said. “I said ‘I want you to go out there and just give it your best and battle it out.’ And they did. The score doesn’t show how tough my girls played. When you play against a really good skilled team like that, if you look at the score, 6-1, 6-0, you think a team got killed, but we didn’t. We battled.”
Coming off graduation last night, Murphy had four seniors looking to make Falmouth earn another state title.
“We just knew we had to try our best and do what we were supposed to do,” said Chloe Morin, who along with Maddie LeBlond took the first doubles match to three sets before falling short. “We wanted to just work hard. I knew they were really good, but if we gave it our all, we could give them a battle.”
Falmouth’s Caroline Ray won the first points for Falmouth (16-0) with a win at second singles. She beat Alanna Taylor 6-1, 6-0. Kate Kelley won the third singles match with a victory over Lizzy Michaud, 6-1, 6-1. Then, the second doubles match went Falmouth’s way. The team of Annie Gott and Mia Cooney beat Corinne Laberge and Sierra Melanson, 6-3, 6-1.
That secured the win overall, but Falmouth added to the team score with a win in first singles. Julia Brogan, the individual state champion, beat Maddi Roy 6-0, 6-0.
“I just can’ be any more proud of them,” said Murphy, whose team finished 15-1. “They gave it all they had.”
Nothing proved that more than in the first doubles. LeBlond and Morin won the first set 6-3, but Falmouth’s team of Amanda Watson and Mary Hyland battled back for the win. They took the next two sets 6-3 and 7-6.
“It was really fun,” Morin said. “We just kept in it and tried to keep our heads up. We won the first set, and I thought we might win the next set. When they were winning, we just kept battling every game. The tie-breakers are always stressful. We were up 4-2, but they’re good.”
It was the 17th trip to the states for the Lewiston boys. Their last appearance came in 2011. Lewiston rallied from behind to beat Mt. Blue in the regional final. The Blue Devils knew it might be tough to top that performance against Thornton.
“For us, getting here, it was a really exciting match in the regional final,” said LeBlond. “So everything after that is gravy.”
Lewiston was hoping to get wins in the doubles match and maybe get a singles win, but Thornton thwarted that strategy. Though Lewiston challenged the Trojans early, Thornton was able to rally and win all its first sets.
“I wasn’t watching all the matches but in the second and third singles matches, we dropped the first game,” Thornton coach Andy Carlson said. “Now you’re wondering if you can find the momentum. We were lucky to do that in the first sets. Then we played well in the second sets.”
Both doubles matches went to tiebreakers, but the Trojans were able to win both first sets. The first points for Thornton came when the team of Jackson Dohse and Adam Lovejoy beat Kyle Morin and Sam Zashut 7-6, 6-3.
After Jack Xiao beat Eric Hall in third singles, 6-2, 6-3, Thornton secured the win by taking first doubles. The tandem of Jared Waterhouse and Dylan Gooch beat Ben Ferrence and Reid Pomerleau 7-6, 6-2.
In second singles, Viktor Schwarz beat Timo Teckenberg. Then, in first singles, Dariy Vykhodtsev beat Cole Ouellette 6-1, 6-3. Vykhodtsev finished second in the state individual tournament.
“I think we felt at No. 1 singles we were pretty good,” Carlson said. “Cole’s a good player, but Dariy is a sightly different level player right now. Then we thought the second and third singles were a toss up and if we took one of those matches we’d be alright. At doubles, if we took one of those, we’d be alright.”
The Lewiston boys lose Teckenberg, Hall, Pomerleau, Morin and Zashut to graduation, but have a promising young squad to look forward to next year.
“Our guys are part time tennis players,” LeBlond said. “None of our kids play all year round. So we don’t have ‘tennis players,’ so to speak, but our kids did a really good job. They’ve worked hard this year and they had a lot of fun playing tennis.”
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