Yarmouth, Waynflete, Lewiston capture crowns

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PORTLAND – In Saturday’s Class B team tennis state final, Teeny was huge.

It’s hard to envision a 6-foot-1 high school senior called Teeny, but that’s who Christine Clancy is for fans of the Yarmouth High girls tennis team.

With the state championship hinging on the outcome of the match in No. 1 singles, Clancy rallied early, then rolled to a victory over Ellsworth’s Meghan Collins, sealing a second straight title for the Clippers. They defeated Eastern Maine champion Ellsworth 3-2 in at Deering Oaks.

In Class C, Waynflete of Portland outlasted EM winner Orono, also 3-2. Lewiston took the Class A title, defeating McAuley of Portland 4 -1.

In Class B, Ellsworth had picked up wins at third singles and second doubles, which meant the pressure was on Clancy and Collins. Clancy was down 2-1 early but roared back to finish at 6-3, 6-2.

“We were both on serve so I wasn’t really worried. I knew I had to get a break and once I broke her serve I just had to hold, and that was the set,” said Clancy, who was the Yarmouth basketball team’s center and will play basketball for Brandeis next year. “I just tried to play smart, consistent.”

Although the Clippers won the final, decisive match, Ellsworth coach Brian Higgins said he was hoping both doubles teams would carry the Eagles.

“We always assume that the Western Maine schools have a good 1-2 and we always assume that we can compete with them in doubles, and we always have, and today we won at third singles, too,” Higgins said. “Really it was first doubles where we thought we had our best chance to move on and they just weren’t on today.” Yarmouth’s first doubles team of Kate Lerley and Ginny Petrovek beat out Ellsworth’s Kate Beal and Meghan Pelletier 6-1, 6-2.

Monica Gardner gave the Eagles a No. 3 singles win, pounding Heather O’Connell 6-1, 6-0. Ellsworth’s Sarah Staples and Cherry Gammelin edged Emily Poole and Kathleen Martin 6-1, 7-5.

Louise Taylor, Yarmouth’s second-singles player, defeated Ellsworth’s May Chan 6-2, 6-0.

“The whole year we’ve really been counting on me and [Taylor], and we knew we had to have at least one of our singles or doubles pull through,” Clancy said.

In Class C, the Red Riots and the Flyers were tied at 2-2 when first singles players Robin Sewall of Orono and Elizabeth Currie of Waynflete stepped onto the court.

The matchup had Orono coach Dean Armstrong a bit concerned. Sewall, who was ranked No. 6 in the state singles tourney this year, had been undefeated in Class C competition in the past two years. Currie, however, was ranked fourth and would provide one of the toughest challenges of Sewall’s team career.

Currie cruised in the match, defeating Sewall 6-1, 6-0.

“She was tenacious,” Armstrong said. “She just kept hitting everything back, she moved the ball around well. She’s a nice, nice player. That’s probably one of the two or three best players Robin’s had the opportunity to play this year.”

Armstrong was pleased by the spots in which Orono won matches. In the Eastern Maine final against George Stevens of Blue Hill last week, first and second singles and second doubles made the difference for the Red Riots. On Saturday, third singles and first doubles were the winners.

Orono’s Jessica Wagner and Chandra Pixley had one of the best and toughest matches of the day. Facing Waynflete’s Sarah Himmelfarb and Elizabeth Perkins, the Orono team rallied in the first set and took it to a tiebreaker, which they won 12-10. Wagner and Pixley dropped the second set 1-6, but hung on to win the third set 7-5.

The key to the winning set was adjusting to the Waynflete duo’s net play, the strength of which Wagner and Pixley had rarely seen in the regular season. They were down 3-0 when they made their move.

“In the third set, when we found that we could come to the net and play it well, it [became] a battle of the net games,” Wagner said. “We were down by three or four games in almost all of our sets when we would start to come back.”

The Orono girls found out during their match that the state title had been lost, but Pixley and Wagner wanted the doubles win for themselves, especially after losing in their Eastern Maine match.

“We didn’t want to have a 4-1 loss, and we wanted to prove that we could do better in states,” Pixley said.

Sabina Pendse also gutted out a win for Orono at third singles, holding off Caitie Whelan 7-5, 7-5.

No. 2 singles player Jessica Wolinsky showed her toughness, too. She played Orono’s Kristina Wihbey to a score of 6-4 in the first set but walked off the court clutching her back during the break between sets. Rather than let her back bother her, Wolinsky won the second set 6-0.

“She’s the toughest competitor on our team,” first-year Waynflete coach Jeff Madore said of the senior, who has been dealing with back problems this year. “I think she was a little nervous out there and that made her whole body tighten up.”

The Flyers’ other win came at second doubles. Morgan Finch and Jenny Steinkeler combined on a 6-2, 6-1 win over Sophie Gray and Audrey Co.

In Class A, the Blue Devils swept the singles matches, including Amy Sarrazin’s 7-6 (7-1), 6-1 win over McAuley’s Emily Green at first singles. The state title is the fifth for the defending champions.

Lewiston’s Erica Bonenfant edged Christie Beaulieu of McAuley 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 in second singles. Mickey Begin had an easier time with Andrea Janson at third singles, cruising to a 6-1, 6-1 win. Nicole McWhorter and Beth Melanson gave the Devils a 6-1, 6-2 win at second doubles over Danielle DiFiore and Danielle Gagnon.

Jen Marsh and Elizabeth Clark earned the Lions’ only win. They beat Kate Morin and Alli Bleakney 7-6 (9-7), 1-6, 6-3.