CAMBRIDGE – No. 5 Lexington (24-1) moved into some rare space as the girls tennis team rolled to a 4-1 win over No. 3 Lincoln-Sudbury in the Division 1 state final at the duPont Tennis Courts on the campus of MIT.
In a rematch of last year’s state final, Lexington proved to be the better team for the second season in a row and now can claim back-to-back titles for the first time in school history. The Minuteman now own three state tennis championships, with one back in 1975.
No. 1 and No. 2 singles stars Diya Patchamuthu and Kyra McCandless cruised to match victories to pace the Minutemen from the start.
Patchamuthu secured a 6-1, 6-1 win over Emily Naum while McCandless was one better with a 6-0, 6-1 win over Lia Swire for straight set victories as the sophomore tandem set things up nicely for Lexington head coach Chance Fechtor.
“Very dominant and like you saw, (McCandless) barely gives up games and they are both anchors for the team,” said Fechtor. “Realistically, everyone has to pull their weight because you never know when they are going to have a bad day. But to know we have that strength up top gives everyone else a little more confidence.”
Lexington was equally impressive with the sweep in doubles as Jessica Dai and Kiki Reddy defeated Nina Gill and Asha Nagel, 6-2, 7-6 (7-5), while Aashna Sahani and Sally Choi took straight sets with a 7-5, 6-1 victory over Heather Naum and Camille Butters.
The Minuteman avenged their only regular season loss of the season against top-seed Boston Latin as they edged into the finals with a 3-2 semifinals victory to spark the now two-time defending champions in the end.
Dai credited the team camaraderie and sticking to the season-long game plan built by coach Fechtor for their recent success.
“The main thing is everyone is so supportive of each other, and we had a ton of moments, like ‘What if this player is injured’ and ‘What are we going to do with our lineup,’ but a lot of everyone thinking together,” said Dai, who is one of two senior captains along with Sahani.
“We focused on how we were going to put our best foot forward and challenge ourselves. I know for Boston Latin in the semis it was a really tough match and we thought about changing things up, but we wanted to try again, put everything we can (into it), because we knew we could do it.”