PORTLAND – Eliot Potvin flirted with a state tennis title a year ago, but fell victim in part to the game behind the shots while losing in the final match.

On Monday, the Hampden Academy sophomore showed not only his considerable ball-striking ability, but also his growth in the more subtle aspects of the game as he steamrolled the field to win the 2005 schoolboy singles championship at the Racket & Fitness Center.

“I think I’m playing more aggressively this year, and mentally I’m more focused, more mature,” said the top-ranked Potvin, who defeated No. 3 Garret Currier of Cape Elizabeth 6-1, 6-1 in the title match after besting No. 5 Parker Swenson of North Yarmouth Academy 6-1, 6-2 in the semifinals. “I’ve gotten a lot of experience over the last year.

“Last year, I think it was a lack of focus. I’d let up at times. But here I just knew that on every point I had to focus because I knew if I gave someone a door, they’d walk right through it.”

The 16-year-old Potvin, who lost in three sets to Bangor’s Bryan Brown in last year’s final, closed the door early on both Swenson and Currier. In the semifinal, he raced out to a 5-0 lead in each set before Swenson battled back to avoid being shut out.

“I thought I played great,” said Potvin of his semifinal. “I was being really aggressive, and staying pretty consistent, so overall I felt awesome.”

Against Currier, Potvin was even more dominant. He never faced a break point while losing just nine points in seven service games. Overall, he won 57 of the 85 points contested during the championship match.

“I was just trying to dictate play using the forehand, trying to get to net some, really just trying to be aggressive,” Potvin said.

Currier, who was coming off a three-set semifinal win over Brown that lasted more than two hours, tried to rely on his baseline presence in the final but was overpowered by the strength of Potvin’s forehand rockets

“I was going to try and keep it deeper, but I didn’t get a chance to do that,” said Currier. “I basically just tried to find a weakness, but he doesn’t have many weaknesses. I was pretty much outmatched.”

Potvin, undefeated this season, finished the state tournament allowing no more than three games in any of his five matches and compiling a collective game advantage of 60-9.

“The biggest thing for me about Eliot is that his focus is all tennis, and I respect his game enormously,” said Swenson.

“His serve is so good that no matter if I guessed on it, it had me on the defensive every time. His serve put me on the defense, where my serve was neutral and allowed him to take advantage of the point off my serve. I think if I had a better serve, it would have been closer. But his game is just so consistent, it’s tough to find an area to attack.”

Currier, who lost to Brown in last year’s semifinals, earned a measure of redemption against the Bangor senior in the only three-set match of the boys tournament.

“It was just a great match,” said Currier of his 6-3. 0-6, 6-4 victory. “In the second set he stepped it up and I didn’t, and he took care of me there. I hit a few more short balls in the second set, so I tried to get my ground strokes a little deeper in the third set.”

This match indeed had an extreme ebb and flow, as evidenced by the contrasting scores of the first two sets and the fact Currier stormed out to a 5-1 lead in the third set before Brown fought off five match points to cut the deficit to 5-4.

The second-seeded Brown then had three break points in the 10th game of the final set before Currier closed out the match.

“I thought I had a decent shot going into the third set, which is why I kept on playing and didn’t give up,” said Brown. “But Garret got off to a good start and I just couldn’t catch up.

“Garret played pretty much constant the whole time. It was more my spurts of winners and errors, but he played well through the whole match.”

Potvin actually is the elder statesman among the state’s new singles champions. Top-seeded freshman Camille Jania of Scarborough won the girls’ title, defeating No. 4 Ginny Petrovek of Yarmouth in her semifinal and No. 2 Kristen Meahl of Falmouth in the final without yielding a game. In five tournament matches, she amassed a 60-1 game record.

“I think I played pretty well,” said Jania, the top-ranked 16-and-under and 18-and-under player in New England. “Everyone just told me to have fun and don’t be nervous, that I didn’t have to prove anything.”