PORTLAND — Ali Stankiewicz spent last tennis season at Brunswick High School working her way through the junior varsity ranks.

“I never thought I would be here, but i worked really hard to try and get here,” Stankiewicz said. “It paid off.”

Yes, yes it did. Thursday, as the Dragon’s No. 2 singles player only a year later, she etched her name into team lore, powering her way to a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Lewiston’s Paige LeBlond to provide Brunswick with the third and clinching point of its match against the Blue Devils, helping the Dragons take down Lewiston 4-1 in the Eastern Class A final at Portland Racket & Fitness.

“I didn’t know at that match (against Lewiston earlier in the year) that we could do it, not yet,” Brunswick coach Rob Manter said. “I knew we’d be good, I didn’t know how good. I don’t think I realized how strong (Stankiewicz) was going to be.”

The Dragon’s victory is their third over Lewiston this season, and snaps the Devils’ six year stranglehold on the Class A state crown.

“At least for this year,” Manter said cautiously. “We know they’ll always be around.”

“It all has to end at some point,” Lewiston coach Anita Murphy said. “This happened with other teams, too. I remember playing Caribou, and they’d won four in a row, and I remember thinking, ‘Wow, four in a row, that’s amazing.’ But it changes hands, and rightfully so this year.”

The Blue reign is officially over, but not for a lack of guts, grit and effort.

Lewiston High School’s Kirsty Beauchesne ground out a 7-6(6), 6-3 win over Laura Pavitt of Brunswick at No. 3 singles in a match that took more than an hour and a half to secure her team’s lone point.

“It would have been easy for them to just give up, with the team score decided, but they didn’t,” Murphy said. “Kirsty and Courtney and Kenzi all looked at each other after their first sets, and said, ‘Let’s go out and win these anyway.'”

At first doubles, the Dragons took the point, but only after Alexa Rivers and Gillian Ford had to grind through two tiebreakers to defeat Lewiston’s Courtney Aldrich and Kenzi Masselli, 7-6(6), 7-6(4).

“We have a lot of heart, the girls will play and give it everything,” Murphy said. “Really, talent-wise, I just think Brunswick had more.”

Both teams were shells of their former selves. Five of each team’s starting seven from one year ago graduated, and both perennial Eastern A contenders had to retool their lineup. For Brunswick, one of the returning pieces was sophomore Maisie Silverman. The top singles player on the team, Silverman is also the reigning state singles champion.

“There’s been no guarantee, even when you have a good player like Maisie, we had her last year,” Manter said. “Then you have to split the remaining matches, and that always sounds easier easier than it is.”

Silverman set the tone for the match Thursday with a quick 6-0, 6-2 win over Lewiston’s Morgan Bowen.

In a quicker-than-expected finish, Brunswick’s Leah Soloway and Samiera MacMullen upended Lewiston’s Jessica Soucy and Becca Michaud 6-1, 6-0 to put the Dragons firmly in command.

“They never got into the game,” Murphy said. “For whatever reason, they never got the momentum going their way.”

Attention turned to the three center courts, where the players from Brunswick took big early leads. Beauchesne and the top doubles pairing of Masselli and Aldrich rebounded to each force tiebreaks. LeBlond tightened things up in the second set after a quick first in Stankiewicz’s favor.

But Stankiewicz, seeing her team so close to victory, found another gear.

“I was getting a little nervous there,” Stankiewicz said. “I just focused, and finished it.”

“I’ve coached a bunch of boys for a number of years, and now the girls the past three years,” Manter said. “She’s probably the most improved player from one year to the next I’ve ever had.”

Beauchesne fell behind early in her second set, but rallied to win four consecutive games to close out her match.

“I think Brunswick, all in all, is just a stronger team than we are,” Murphy said.

Brunswick will battle McAuley for the Class A state tennis crown Saturday. State finals for all classes and genders are scheduled for Saturday at Colby College in Waterville.

Copy the Story Link