WATERVILLE – Caribou High School athletes are used to long road trips.

Few were longer than the ride home by the school’s boys tennis team last June after narrowly losing the Eastern Maine Class B championship match.

But that same drive home from Wednesday’s Eastern Maine finals at Colby College had a much different feel after the top-ranked Vikings topped No. 3 Belfast 5-0 to win the first regional boys’ tennis crown in school history.

“It was a big bummer last year,” said Caribou senior Keegan Wakana. “We were all pretty sad. But coming back and winning this year is pretty joyous.”

The victory earns the 15-0 Vikings a trip to Lewiston on Saturday for the Class B state final, where they’ll be joined by fellow Eastern Maine champs Lewiston (Class A) and George Stevens Academy of Blue Hill (Class C).

Belfast – 13-2 after the best season in school history – was shorthanded from the outset as second singles player Lucas Riorda, an exchange student from Argentina, boarded a plane for home earlier in the day.

With just seven players before Riorda’s departure, the Lions moved third seed Russell Varney up to second singles and forfeited the third singles match, giving Caribou a 1-0 lead.

And it’s doubtful Riorda’s presence would have mattered – Caribou yielded just seven games while winning the other four matches and extending its individual match record for the season to 75-0.

“It was kind of uneventful,” said Caribou coach John Habeeb of the match.

“Usually we come down here and we’re in a dogfight and we’re always scrapping from behind to try to pull off matches. Today there wasn’t much I could say between the first and second sets except don’t change what you’re doing because everything’s going well.”

In singles, No. 1 Franz Zehentner fought off Belfast junior Patrick LaCivita 6-2, 6-2, while Shane Belanger topped Varney 6-2, 6-0. Taylor Jepson and Spencer McElwain defeated Levi Whitcomb and Jeff Morgan 6-0, 6-1 at first doubles, while Wakana and Tim Langlais surged past Luke Lindelof and Cassidy Alex 6-0, 6-0.

“It’s great to get this for the boys,” said Habeeb. “We thought about this day the whole way through the season and never took it out of our sights.

Now we can actually set our sights on a state title and hopefully we’ll all play well Saturday,” he added.

In Class A, Lewiston topped Bangor 4-1 for its sixth straight regional title.

“This is our third time playing Lewiston in the Eastern Maines and every single time it’s been 4-1 them,” said Bangor top seed Adam Bernstein. “We knew we were coming into a battle, but we were kind of hoping for a better showing than this.”

The Blue Devils used straight-set victories from both doubles teams and Ben McDonough at third singles for a 3-0 lead. First doubles partners Devyn Cote and Alex Chicoine topped Ricky Segal and Chris Folsom 6-1, 6-0 and McDonough defeated Bangor’s Will Cutshall 6-1, 6-2 before Scott Gagne and Eric Hall clinched the match with a 6-3, 6-3 second-doubles victory over Josh Turcotte and Alex Price.

Third seed Matt Letourneau added a 6-4, 6-2 win over Ian McDonnell before Bernstein defeated Mike Butler 7-5, 6-4 in a battle of state singles quarterfinalists.

Bernstein trailed 5-3, 40-love in the first set before rallying to win four straight games, then used two service breaks to win the final three games of the second set.

In Class C, top-ranked George Stevens topped No. 7 Madawaska 4-1 for its sixth EM title in the last seven years.

GSA took a 2-0 lead on victories by second doubles partners Dylan Stewart and Michael Senter-Zapata (6-0, 6-2 over Kyle Pelletier and Jacques Daigle), and Elias Springer and Dillon Morris at first doubles (6-2, 6-3 over Jamie Cyr and Craig Cyr).

But Madawaska had reason for hope after winning the first set in each of the three singles matches.

“I was a little worried,” said GSA top seed Cooper Mor. “I knew we had to win three matches, but after our doubles teams won I felt pretty confident because our No. 3 had picked it up in the second and third sets and I felt pretty confident about my own chances.”

Henry Owen scored the decisive victory at third singles in somewhat unorthodox fashion.

He struggled with his normal serve during a 6-4 first-set loss to Christian Lizotte, so Owen reverted to an underhand serve that served two purposes – more serving accuracy and drawing Lizotte to the net where Owen attacked him with lobs and passing shots.

“He really had me at the beginning because I couldn’t get anything past him,” said Owen. “He was getting everything back. I was serving really bad so I ended up serving underhanded.”

Owen won the final two sets 6-0, 6-1 to give GSA its third point.

Mor then rallied past Madawaska’s Shawn Parker 3-6, 7-5, 6-4, while Nathan Beaulieu of Madawaska scored a 7-5, 4-6, 6-2 victory over Giammarco Manzoni at second singles.

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