Olivia Leavitt of Falmouth won her third straight high school girls tennis state championship, while Isaac Salas of Camden and Portland’s Waynflete School earned the boys crown for the first time Monday at The Racket and Fitness Club in Portland.
The semifinals and championship matches, originally scheduled to be played at Bates College in Lewiston, were moved indoors because of inclement weather.
The top-seeded Leavitt, a senior, defeated sophomore Bethany Hammond, the No. 2 seed from Belgrade and Saint Dominic Academy of Auburn, in a tightly contested final, winning the first set 6-4 and then pulling away in a second-set tiebreaker to clinch the match 7-6 (7-1).
Leavitt, who will continue her tennis career at Brandeis University next year, dropped just four other games in her previous four tournament victories, including a 6-1, 6-1 win over fourth-ranked Falmouth teammate Julia Brogan in the semifinals.
Leavitt, who lost to Brunswick’s Maisie Silverman in a three-set semifinal as a freshman in 2012, defeated Silverman in the championship match in both 2013 and 2014 before this year becoming the first three-time schoolgirl state champion since Waynflete’s Christine Ordway in 2006, 2007 and 2009.
She also became the first girl to win three consecutive titles since Karolina Pierko of Biddeford won four in a row from 1996 to 1999, and matched the three straight titles held by the last previous Falmouth girls player to win it all, Lindsay Whipple in 1983, 1984 and 1985.
Hammond, who reached the semifinals as a freshman, defeated third-seeded Rosemary Campanella, a freshman from Wells, 6-1, 6-2 in this year’s semis.
The second-seeded Salas capped off a steady four-year progression up the state’s schoolboy singles ranks by outlasting top-seeded sophomore Nick Mathieu of Mt. Ararat of Topsham 7-6 (7-5), 6-3.
As an unseeded freshman, Salas upset two seeded players to reach the 2012 state quarterfinals, then matched that finish as a sophomore a year later.
Salas advanced to the semifinals as the No. 3 seed last spring before this year handing Mathieu his second-straight championship match defeat.
Mathieu was the No. 4 seed a year ago before falling to Falmouth’s Brendan McCarthy in a straight-set final.
Salas, who plans to play collegiately at Franklin & Marshall next year, defeated No. 3 Luka Stevic of Lee Academy 6-3, 6-3 in the semifinals, while Mathieu was a 7-6 (7-5), 6-4 semifinal survivor against No. 4 Teodor Antelj of Fryeburg Academy.
Salas became the first state champion from Waynflete since Brandon Thompson in 2010.
