LEWISTON — They don’t make comeback victories any more comebacky than the one the Lewiston High School boys tennis team earned on Wednesday afternoon.
Before the Class A North championship had barely started, Lewiston had dropped two matches to Mt. Blue. Lewiston even trailed by a set in all five matches on the day, but with wins from Timo Teckenberg at second singles and Cole Ouellette at first singles, the Blue Devils capped their rally with a 3-2 win at Bates College.
Lewiston, now 12-3, will face either Thornton Academy (14-0) or Falmouth (14-0) in the state championship Saturday at Lewiston High School. This was the Blue Devils’ first regional title since 2011. Mt. Blue ends the best boys tennis season in its history at 11-4.
Ouellette dropped the first set to Evan Backus, 7-6, before taking the second set, 6-4. As he played, Ouellette knew the Cougars had taken two matches and needed just one more for the win. He also knew Teckenberg was still playing one court over, not giving in to Mt. Blue’s Jack Leopold.
“I knew I had to play as hard as I had to. (Backus) is a good player. He’s really consistent and I just tried my best,” Ouellette said. “I knew Timo was going to pull through. I was cheering him on as much as I could from my side.”
Like Ouellette, Teckenberg dropped the first set of his match 7-6. Leopold led 5-4 in the second set, but leg cramps that bothered Leopold throughout the match began to take their toll. Leopold used a five-minute medical timeout late in the second set and limped off the court when Teckenberg took a 7-5 win to even the match.
Teckenberg won the third set from Leopold, 6-4, leaving the fate of both teams in the hands of their number one singles players. Ouellette took set two, 6-4, and led the third set 4-0 before Backus rallied to cut the lead to 4-2. Relying on a strong serve, Ouellette took the deciding set, 6-3.
“I tried to get a good serve. I knew he was going to give me everything he had, so I just tried to play my best tennis,” Ouellette said.
The day started strongly for the Cougars, who began with a first doubles win by Thomas Marshall and Dylan Roberts, 6-4, 6-3, over Ben Ferrence and Reid Pomerleau. Marshall and Roberts, who have been a doubles team for three seasons, missed the regular season match against Lewiston when they represented Mt. Blue at a robotics competition.
Soon after first doubles was complete, Mt. Blue’s Alex Bunnell won third singles, 6-1, 6-2, over Eric Hall. Bunnell compared Hall’s style of play to Hampden’s Kyle Townsend, who Bunnell took a tough three set match from in last week’s semifinal win. Both Hall and Townsend look for their opponent to make mistakes, Bunnell said.
“I just wanted to make sure I was more patient than I usually am. I kept the ball in play and waited for my chance,” Bunnell said.
Bunnell and Hall each made the other work the entire court to earn points, and Bunnell was somewhat surprised by the final score.
“It was a much closer match than the score shows,” he said.
Lewiston’s comeback began in second doubles. The Mt. Blue team of Andrew Heszko and Tristan McFarlane took the first set, 6-4, before Lewiston’s Kyle Morin and Sam Zashut went 6-1, 6-1 to win the match.
Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242
tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @TLazarczykMTM
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