PORTLAND – Lewiston’s Mike Butler slouched over, balancing his weight on the balls of his feet. His palms came to his head and his fingers disappeared into his curly locks as he balanced his tennis racket with the fingers on his left hand.

He was tired. He knew it.

“I didn’t think I would be that tired, honestly,” Butler said. “But I was … tired.”

On the other side of the court, Deering’s Neall Oliver bounced around, his head swiveling side to side in search of missing tennis balls.

Oliver found them, and hit them. Hard.

After enduring a marathon, 3-hour match in the MPA singles tournament round of 16, Butler had nothing left in the tank in the quarterfinals. Oliver posted a 6-1, 6-0 win over the Lewiston junior, taking less than one hour to complete the match.

“I came in wanting to hit to his backhand, hoping he’d make errors on the backhand,” Butler said. “And all he did was hit winners, on both sides. I just had to sit there and take the blows.”

Oliver, the No. 3 seed, joined No. 1 Mike Hill of Mt. Ararat, No. 2 Sam Hyland of Falmouth and No. 5 Brandon Thompson of Waynflete in the state semifinals, which will be held Monday morning at Bates College in Lewiston.

On the girls’ side, Chantalle Lavertu of Lewiston held seed and will make the short trip to Bates on Monday, too. Lavertu ousted Erin Woodbury of MacAuley in the round of 16, and gutted out a 6-3, 6-3 win over No. 5 Jess Daly of Cheverus in the quarterfinals.

“She just got everything back,” Lavertu said of Daly. “I’d hit a shot I thought was a winner, and it was coming back over the net at me, so I’d have to go hit another one. I was trying to get her tired, because she’d already played a three-set match.”

Lavertu will run into a buzzsaw Monday, though. No. 1 seed Camille Jania of Scarborough, who played as a freshman, left and returned this year as a senior, has never lost a set and has lost just one game in her brief high school career.

“Now all I have to do is beat Camille,” Lavertu joked. “Easy, right?”

No. 2 seed Christine Ordway, the defending girls’ champion, and sixth-seeded Erin Flynn of John Bapst will play for the berth in the final Monday morning, alongside Lavertu and Jania.

The match of the day Saturday belonged to a pair of Lewiston boys, though. Butler and Devin Van Dyke, a Lewiston native playing for Waynflete, staged a 3-hour marathon, during which Hill completed both of his matches.

“We’ve played a lot of tennis, but never against each other in tournament conditions,” Van Dyke said. “I was excited for it coming in, and it was a great match.”

Van Dyke took a quick 5-2 lead in the first set, but Butler battled back, taking five straight games to earn a 7-5 victory.

“I knew the first set would be huge,” Butler said. “I knew I had to get my confidence up. I knew if I got down a set, he jump all over me second set and take care of me.”

In the second, Van Dyke again rolled out to a 5-2 lead, this time hanging on to win 6-4 to force a third set.

“I was thinking about (the first set),” admitted Van Dyke, “but I was able to hold serve that time.”

Late in the third, the players traded breaks. Butler served for the set up 5-4, but blew the game in just five points. Van Dyke made it 6-5, but Butler held his serve this time to force a tiebreak, which he won, 7-4.

“We used to hit all the time,” Butler said. “He knew a lot of my strokes, so I had to mix up my game a little bit.”

The semifinals are scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Monday, with the finals slated to begin in the early afternoon.