CARIBOU, Maine — The Viking tennis teams have forged into the regional championships with dominating performances in the semifinals.
The Caribou squads rolled to easy victories on Saturday, with both the girls and boys matches being played at the Caribou High School tennis courts on a cool and windy day.
The top-ranked Viking girls bested No. 4 Hermon, while the No. 2 seeded Caribou boys stopped Foxcroft Academy. Both were by 5-0 scores.
The 14-0 Caribou girls will now take on No. 2 John Bapst and the boys, also 14-0, meet up against top-ranked Waterville in Wednesday’s Class B North title matches at Colby College in Waterville, both beginning at 10 a.m. The matches were originally supposed to be played Tuesday, but were moved back a day due to the predicted rainy weather.
The winners move on to the state championships, which are set for Saturday, June 9, at Lewiston High School.
The Viking girls opened Saturday’s doubleheader by blanking the Hawks. Caribou had beaten Hermon in the regular-season opener, 4-1, dropping its only individual match of the season in that one. Thanks to a hard-fought win by the No. 1 doubles team of Ciara Richards and Madison Stratton on Saturday in a two-hour long match that came down to a third-set tiebreaker, the Vikes had their shutout.
Alec Cyr of the Vikings rips a forehand against his Foxcroft Academy opponent, Austin Bickmore, during the semifinal tennis match played Saturday in Caribou. Cyr defeated Bickmore, 6-0, 6-0. (Kevin Sjoberg)
The Richards-Stratton duo trailed 5-4 in the third set before taking two of the next three games. The Viking team then defeated Hermon’s veteran team of Paige Plissey and Maddie Pullen, 7-1, in the tiebreaker.
“I don’t think I’ve ever hit that many lobs in a match before,” said Richards, who noted the windy conditions were a major factor, “but we wanted to make it more of an offensive technique and it worked out.”
After breezing through the first set with a 6-1 win, Plissey and Pullen came back to take the second, 6-3, before grabbing the lead late in the third.
“When we get overwhelmed, that’s when we start making mistakes, so we tried to stay calm and play it one point at a time,” said Richards regarding the comeback.
The match was the only dramatic one for Caribou as they sailed in the other four. In singles, Gabrielle Marquis shut down Alex Allain, 6-0, 6-0, while Ashley Matlock won by the same score over Maddie Willis. Hailey Holmquist made it a singles sweep for the Vikes by taking down Jillian Taylor, 6-0, 6-2.
In second doubles, Caribou’s Samantha Tourk and Kyra Thibeault ousted Olivia Tardie and Maddie Willey, 6-0, 6-1.
Hermon completed its season with a 9-5 record.
The boys match followed and many observers expected a close match as both teams entered with undefeated records. Caribou coach John Habeeb didn’t see it that way, based on matchups from the regular season in 2017, and was confident his team would prevail. That hunch came to fruition as the Vikes steamrolled the Ponies, 5-0.
“I looked at how our guys did against them last season and who each team had coming back, and I felt good about things,” Habeeb said. “I think we are a stronger team than a year ago and that proved correct.”
Parker Deprey, playing first singles, had to survive a second-set tiebreaker against his opponent, Kaz Kawushima, but prevailed 6-1, 7-6 (9-7). The other two singles matches were blowouts as Alec Cyr downed Austin Bickmore, 6-0, 6-0, and Gabe Rand dominated Jerry Zhou, 6-1, 6-0.
Bailey Griffeth and Sawyer Deprey gained a straight-sets victory over Griffin Loomis and Brandon Weston, 6-1, 6-2, while Emerson Duplissie-Cyr and Seth Beidelman used their senior experience to have their way against R.J. Nelson and Ryan Dankert, 6-2, 6-2.
