WATERVILLE, Maine — For Waynflete of Portland tennis standout Brandon Thompson, the waiting was the hardest part Saturday.
After winning his match in straight sets during the Flyers’ Class C boys tennis state final against Madawaska at Colby College, the sophomore had to watch his teammates’ final two matches work their way through tense third sets with the championship at stake.
But when Waynflete’s first doubles team of Eric Ordway and Sam Cleaves finished off a 6-1, 6-7 (2), 7-5 victory over Jacques Daigle and Jamie Cyr, Thompson and Co. had the program’s second straight state title and fourth in the last five years.
“It’s actually harder watching because it’s out of your control,” said Thompson, a finalist in this year’s state singles tournament who defeated Madawaska top seed Shawn Parker 6-1, 6-2 earlier in the day. “It was really intense. I was pretty worried because it came down to three sets and it was so close. It was amazing.”
The Class C girls final lacked similar drama, as North Yarmouth Academy lost just one set while winning its third consecutive state championship with a 5-0 victory over George Stevens Academy of Blue Hill.
Madawaska (13-3) entered the boys match as a heavy underdog, but the athletic Owls were equally determined to let their play, not expectations, determine the outcome.
“We had a little meeting and talked about having pride,” said Madawaska coach Ben Sirois. “We knew that as far as scouting reports go we didn’t match up well, but we talked about having pride in each other and competing and not making a mockery of ourselves going out there, and we set the tone that way.
“The day just went really well for us. We didn’t know until the last minute what was going to happen.”
Waynflete (16-0) took an early 2-1 lead with victories by Thompson and second seed Devin Van Dyke — 6-0, 6-2 over Nathan Beaulieu — offsetting a 6-3, 6-4 victory by Madawaska’s Kyle Pelletier and Adam Lavertu over Chris Gillespie and Henry Jorgenson at second doubles.
That left two matches to be decided, first doubles and the third singles clash between Madawaska’s Chris Lizotte and Waynflete’s Ross Cummings.
Daigle and Cyr lost their first set 6-1 but rallied to win a second-set tiebreaker 7-2, while Cummings rebounded from a 6-3 first-set loss with a 6-4 second-set win over Lizotte.
Lizotte took the early lead in the third set, and Madawaska also jumped out to a 2-0 lead at first doubles, but Waynflete came on strong late in both matches.
Ordway and Cleaves — a replacement for regular partner Nate Niles, who left after the WM final for a ski trip to Europe — led 5-3 before Daigle and Cyr fought off five match points to break serve, then Daigle held serve to square the set.
But Ordway and Cleaves came up big on some crucial points in the next two games, including a winner by Cleaves on Waynflete’s sixth match point — to win the deciding set 7-5.
“We ended up taking a lot of pace off at the end,” said Ordway, a sophomore and the younger brother of three-time state schoolgirl singles champion Christine Ordway, also of Waynflete. “In the beginning we were just making ridiculous shots trying to pound it and go for the angles, but we stopped that and started trying more for consistency.”
Cummings then forced a third-set tiebreaker at third singles, but Lizotte built an early lead and won 7-5.
“It was a great game, both teams were equally fair,” said Cyr. “We came into this thinking we were going to lose 5-0 because that’s what the stats showed, but we almost won. It was pretty good.”
In the girls match, North Yarmouth Academy capped off its third straight 15-1 season against a GSA squad that had graduated its top three singles players from last year’s team.
“They were very polished in their overall ground strokes and games,” said GSA coach Tim Farrar of NYA. “On Thursday and Friday I told our girls these were going to be the easiest practices of the year because these [NYA] girls play tennis the way it should be played. You don’t have to worry about gimmicks or anything like that, you just have to make sure that you hit your shots as well as you can, and that’s the way it turned out.”
NYA top seed Thu-Trang Ho defeated GSA freshman Sotherd Steer 6-1, 6-0 while second-seeded Anna Jaeger topped Katie Herklotz by the same score and third-seeded Sarah Jordan completed a sweep of the singles matches by defeating Roz Brokaw 6-0, 6-0.
GSA’s best chance for a point came at first doubles where Grace Jackson and Vesta Davis won the first set 6-4 before NYA’s Eliza Gercke and Cayla Marvil rallied to win the final two sets 6-1, 6-3.
The Panthers’ Emily Mitchell and Hillary Keach earned a 6-1, 6-0 win over Tierney Halley and Hannah van der Eb at second doubles.
“Everybody, myself included, thought this would be a rebuilding year because we graduated all three of our singles players,” said Farrar. “So one of the things I’m most proud of is that we made it to a state final having to replace all three singles players. That’s quite an accomplishment.”
