Resilient Red Riots beat Owls, reach EM final

VEAZIE – The Orono boys tennis team endured a slow start Saturday before emerging with a fast finish in its Eastern Maine Class C semifinal against Madawaska.

Slow because the Red Riots trailed by a service break at the outset of each of the first three matches to begin play on the Veazie Elementary School courts.

Fast because the second-ranked Red Riots rallied to win each of those matches and clinch the team victory even before their two top singles players took to the court.

Orono eventually earned a 4-1 victory over the sixth-ranked Owls to improve its record to 12-2 and earn a berth against undefeated and top-ranked George Stevens Academy of Blue Hill in Wednesday’s regional final at Colby College in Waterville.

GSA, 14-0 after defeating Fort Kent in its quarterfinal, defeated Orono in last year’s EM title match and also handed the Red Riots their only losses this spring.

Madawaska (8-6) fielded a lineup that included three freshmen against an Orono squad with four juniors and three seniors, and the experience factor may have benefited the Red Riots, who also defeated the Owls in the last year’s semifinals as well as in the 2005 Eastern C championship match.

Orono’s most dramatic comeback Saturday came from seniors Jordan Dudley and Jan Theone at first doubles. They dropped the final five games of the first set before rallying for a 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory over Madawaska’s Craig Cyr and Shawn Parker.

Dudley and Theone jumped out to leads of 4-0 in the second set and 5-0 in the third set before withstanding late comeback bids by Cyr and Parker.

“We just weren’t mentally prepared at the beginning,” said Dudley. “They came at us with some lobs, and we’d never really played a team that played so many lobs and they played they them well. They played them in the back of the court almost all the time, but once we got used to that it was a different game.”

For Dudley and Theone, who played second doubles for much of the spring before successfully challenging up to first doubles, this marked their sixth come-from-behind victory of the season.

“We’ve had awesome comebacks in many matches,” said Theone. “I think that we’re mentally pretty strong when it comes to the important plays, and that’s probably what helped us this time, too.”

Orono’s Emmitt Harrity and Dan Ohno scored a key break of serve in the eighth game of the first set to take the lead, then pulled away early in the second set to earn a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Madawaska freshmen Christian Lizotte and Jamie Cyr at second doubles.

Harrity and Ohno used their play at the net to take control of the match.

“They were pretty good at lobs,” said Harrity, “but we just moved in and broke the other guys down.”

Junior Nate Curtis clinched the win with a hard-fought 2-6, 7-5, 6-2 victory over another Madawaska freshman, Nathan Beaulieu.

Beaulieu used an effective lob and a strong topspin forehand to generate several winners during the first set against Curtis, whose initial strategy was to get to the net. Curtis grew more patient during the final two sets, and that proved pivotal to his victory.

“I think I started hitting the ball a little harder,” he said. “At the beginning I guess I wasn’t really hitting it that hard, so I changed it up and I went to the net less. At the beginning he was lobbing it over me, so then I started not going there as much.”

The teams split the final two singles matches, with Orono top seed Nate Peterson earning a 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 victory over Craig Daigle and Madawaska senior Tyler Levesque topping Orono’s Parker Hall 6-0, 6-2 at second singles.