WATERVILLE – The Camden Hills Windjammers sailed full speed ahead into their fourth straight Class B state championship match Wednesday in machine-like fashion as they took four out of five matches against a talented Caribou team at the Eastern Maine team tennis regionals.
The Windjammers weren’t the only team to make a statement at Colby College’s Klein Tennis Pavilion. The Orono Red Riots, the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Maine Class C ranks, shut out top-seeded Madawaska, which was playing in its third straight EM final, 5-0, and the second-seeded Lewiston Blue Devils remained unbeaten with a 4-1 victory over top-seeded and previously undefeated Bangor.
The 15-0 Windjammers will play for the state crown at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Lewiston High School. Class A action will follow at 1 p.m. with 13-0 Lewiston going for it’s second straight state title. The 14-1 Red Riots will then try to mine Class C state title gold in a 4:30 p.m. match.
On Wednesday morning, the Windjammers were almost perfect and quietly efficient in the way they dispatched the 12-3 Vikings.
“When I saw their scores against Fort Kent in the semifinals, I knew we were in trouble,” said Caribou coach John Habeeb. “We pretty much knew it would take a near-perfect effort for us to beat them.”
Camden swept the singles matches in straight sets behind No. 1 Joey Michalakes, No. 2 Peter Stein and No. 3 Quinn Barden, and the top doubles team of Charlie Ash and Adam LaFleur – both seniors – followed suit with a straight-set victory. Caribou’s No. 2 doubles duo of Casey Lancaster and Spencer McElwain were the only ones able to stop the Camden juggernaut as they pulled out a three-set match 6-1, 4-6, 6-4.
What’s Camden’s secret?
“We have good community support, nice courts provided by our booster club, which raised a lot of money; an indoor facility that’s come into town in recent years; and importantly good players,” said coach Chris Walker-Spencer.
Not only are Camden’s players good, they’re also experienced. Five players return from last seasons’ state runner-up squad.
“We have a lot of leadership and everyone knows what they’re doing,” said Michalakes, a junior. “And the big thing too is we all really like each other. We have a lot of fun playing together and that really helps.”
On Wednesday afternoon, the Rams saw their perfect season fall one match short of their goal as they couldn’t find a way to slow a Blue Devils buzz-saw attack that saw them win most of their matches in commanding fashion this season.
“We knew they would be really tough. We saw that most of their wins were 5-0 and 4-1,” said Bangor senior Bryan Brown, who notched Bangor’s only win with a 6-1, 6-1 win over Lewiston senior Adam Wilding.
Bangor coach Cindi Howard knew the Rams had a tough task, but also figured they could win if the No. 2 doubles team of freshmen Adam Bernstein and Ricky Segal could keep up their surprising production in what was likely the biggest match of their young careers.
Fellow freshmen Casey Poussard and Devin Cote were no slouches either, however, and beat Bangor’s young duo 6-0, 6-2 to set the tone early.
“Our second doubles played like I haven’t seen them before, but I think it’s just their youth and inexperience in a really tough kind of situation,” said Howard. “And it wasn’t just there, though. We needed help from a lot of places to beat Lewiston.”
On Wednesday afternoon, coach Dean Armstrong’s Orono boys gave him his first double-team regional championship in his 12-year career at Orono, but they didn’t make him wait as long as the Red Riot girls team did for it.
The Riots took it easy on their coach after a couple of harrowing, nerve-wracking matches in the quarterfinals and semifinals by dropping only two sets out of 12 in the 5-0 team-match win for Orono’s first boys Class C title since 1996.
“It’s a thrill you never expect. To have the kids do so well is heartening to see,” said Armstrong. “I think both teams are peaking at the end of the season. The girls lost two matches really early, but the boys have only lost one match and have played pretty strong all season and they just seem to keep coming through and the girls have picked up the habit too.”
Perhaps there’s something going around.
“I love this kind of virus and both teams have caught it,” he said with a laugh.
“We knew we needed third singles and second doubles if we were going to beat them and Orono made it too tough for us to do that,” said Madawaska coach Allen Guerrette. “The big one was third singles and their guy (Nate Faulstick) won in straight sets, so that really put us back on our heels from the start.”
Faulstick says his team is just brimming with confidence.
“We seem to have a really good rhythm or something going now and it’s contagious,” he said. “I think we all look around and notice if everyone else is doing well. We all get pumped up.”
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