WATERVILLE — Wins at first doubles and second singles weren’t quite enough as the George Stevens Academy Eagle girls fell to the Waynflete Flyers of Portland 3-2 in Saturday’s State Class C tennis championship at Colby College.

Since the state Class C competition began in 1995, every girls’ title has gone to a Western Maine team, and so it was Saturday.

The 11-5 Flyers, who also downed the GSA girls in the Class C final a year ago, were something of a dark horse this season in Western Maine.

The sixth-seeded Flyers knocked off the number one, two and three seeds en route to the state championship match-up against GSA.

Waynflete’s second doubles duo of Abby Cough and Sophie Raffel got things started with a 6-2, 6-1 win over GSA’s Maggie Keating and Ye Zhang.

Hilary Niles bested senior Maddie Theoharidis 6-0, 6-3 at third singles, and Emily White defeated senior Sotherd Steer of the Eagles 6-3, 6-1 at first singles to secure the team victory for the Flyers.

GSA’s first doubles duo of seniors Ramsay Williamson and Grace Bugbee dropped their first set to Phoebe Syva and Hanae Miyake 2-6 but came back to win the next two 6-4, 6-0.

For GSA at second singles, sophomore Charlotte Reiter and Waynflete’s Emily Trafton split their first two sets, with Trafton taking the first 6-3 and Reiter battling to a 7-6 (8-6) tiebreak win in the second.

With the state title already decided, the two opted to play a 10-point super-tiebreak to decide the third set and Reiter prevailed 10-8.

The Eagles closed out their season with a record of 14-3.

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