The Kearsarge Cougars swept Bishop Brady, 9-0, in a hard-fought Division III state championship game to claim their third state championship in five years.

Head coach Lynn Miller, now in her 10th year, was emotional after her boys left to pack into the bus. She said that coaching the team took a lot of her energy, but that it was equally fulfilling to see her team win it again.

“I try to teach what it takes to build the team, for them to build themselves with my help. So it’s just very gratifying,” she said. “That’s why we coach, why people teach, and hopefully you have moments like this.”

The six singles players for the Cougars were seniors Liam Miller and Graham West, junior William Reid, 8th-grader Max Reid, sophomore Rylan Fitzgerald and junior Jakeb Lizotte, who were all composed and focused, and all won their sets by a margin of four games or more.

“It’s pretty nice, five years on the team. So I played when I was in eighth grade, made some good friends, had a pretty deep team this year,” West said after winning his doubles match with Liam Miller. “The No. 4 through (No.) 6 had some pretty crucial wins throughout the year and it was a blast. Good to get a win.”

“We lost four out of our top seven players, so I think it’s remarkable that we were able to kind of dominate this championship this year and just shows to the effort and commitment that all our teammates have,” Liam Miller added.

Before the championship, No. 2 Kearsarge (16-1) made swift work of its opponents in the playoffs, beating No. 7 Profile, 9-0, and No. 3 Moultonborough Academy, 7-2. For the past three years, the Cougars played Plymouth for the state title, but faced a new and unexpected opponent this time around.

No. 5 Bishop Brady (9-8), on the other hand, was a dark horse candidate going into the postseason. In the first round, the Giants narrowly won, 5-4, against No. 4 Prospect Mountain, a team that had beaten them 7-2 twice during the regular season. 

In the semifinal, they faced an even tougher opponent, No. 1 St. Thomas. The Giants had lost to the Saints three times, 6-1, 6-3 and 8-1, which made their script-flipping win even more surprising. The Giants’ championship appearance was the first for the school since 1973, when Bishop Brady last won the boys’ tennis state title.

Despite not winning it all, the Bishop Brady boys showed a lot of heart and continued battling for points during doubles matches, knowing the championship was lost.

Brady’s only senior on the court, Ben Matseas, said that he was happy to have helped bring his team back to the championship and that the tennis team was a place where he found a strong sense of community in high school. 

The Giants’ top player, Teddy Yap, said that the team’s mindset was to have fun with the sport and do the best they could in every game, on every point, and it got them to the playoffs. From there, he could not have expected the success the team had, but he was very happy with the result. He was especially grateful for Matseas pushing the whole team to be better as the senior leader and supporting everyone.

“Everyone, we’re working on stuff together. You point things out and you just try to improve our game as a whole team and try to work together through that,” Yap said. “Even though it’s an individual sport, like with singles, in doubles, I feel like we’re strongest in doubles, because it’s about teamworking.”

The school did not field a team during the 2023 spring season, but under the leadership of Marianne Thebodeau, they have made improvements, little by little. She was proud of the dedication and interest the boys had shown throughout the season, and that it was a fun experience for the team to get to the championship match.

Liam Miller and Graham West’s seasons are not over yet, as they will both compete in the state singles tournament, which starts on Saturday. Miller will play at SNHU while West will play at Derryfield.

Then, on Sunday, the two will play the state doubles tournament at SNHU starting at 9 a.m. Bishop Brady’s Yap and Matseas also qualified for the state boys’ doubles tournament and could face Miller and West if both pairs advance.

Alexander Rapp can be reached at arapp@cmonitor.com