AMHERST, N.H. — New coach, familiar destination for the Lebanon High boys tennis team.
The Raiders qualified for their fourth NHIAA Division II championship match since 2015 on Thursday, rolling past Souhegan, 8-1, in semifinal action at the Camp Young Judea courts. Lebanon (8-0) had the match in hand by the end of singles play after winning five of the six available points.
The Raiders made three straight D-II title tilts from 2015-17 with former coach Mike Haxton, winning the latter two, the program’s only previous championships. Haxton stepped down following the 2019 season, and Tammy Arado — the director of tennis at Lebanon’s River Valley Club — took over this spring.
“The boys stepped up today and showed no fear,” Arado said. “So proud to coach this team. The boys competed so well today.”
Brothers Mason and Nolan Arado kicked things off with dominant singles wins. Mason claimed an 8-0 win at No. 1 over Joshua Goddard, and Nolan contributed an 8-1 defeat of James Zeolie. No. 3 Seamus Hickey (8-2, topping Michael Dodge), No. 5 Kian Schifferdecker (8-0 over Connor Firmin) and Finn Ericson (8-5, defeating Matthew Yates) gave Lebanon the five points needed to advance.
The Arados joined the tandems of Hickey-Karsten Hansen and Tyler St. Martin-Jake Hibner to sweep doubles. Hickey and Hansen came back from a 3-6 deficit for a 9-7 victory over Zeolie-Ryan Fernandez in the afternoon’s tightest contest.
Lebanon will meet Portsmouth (16-0) in the D-II final at Bedford High School on Saturday. The contest starts at 2 p.m.; the Clippers won the last state team tourney held in 2019.
BEDFORD, N.H. — The 10-time defending champion Bulldogs ended Hanover’s season in a D-I semifinal at Bedford High School.
Hanover ace Evan Yang had a hand in both of his team’s points. The junior posted an 8-6 win over Nick Bayer at first singles, although the Sabers took the remaining singles contests to clinch the team victory. Yang later joined Alex Rockmore in a 9-8 (9-7) tiebreak defeat of Bayer and Bohdan Higley at first doubles.
“Bedford continued their upward trajectory throughout the season, as evidenced by their improvement from mid-April to early June,” Hanover coach Jarrod Shaheen said. “They proved to be a formidable opponent, playing lights-out tennis.”
Hanover will graduate one senior, Alex Stevens.
PETERBOROUGH, N.H. — After Cole Fabry drove in Aidan Yates for the game-tying run in the top of the seventh inning, the Cougars’ Eric Stapelfeld blasted a two-run homer in the bottom half to end the Raiders’ season in an NHIAA Division II preliminary round contest.
Stapelfeld stole the show for the Cougars (2-11). In addition to his walk-off dinger, the junior tossed a complete-game five-hitter with eight strikeouts. Elias Niemela also homered for Con-Val as part of a 3-for-3 performance.
Fabry finished with two hits, two RBIs and two stolen bases for Lebanon (8-7). Yates also had a double. Jon Carrier threw four innings of four-hit, six-strikeout ball for the Raiders and contributed a double to the offense.
“Stapelfeld pitched a great game, and they had some timely hits,” Lebanon coach Chauncey Wood said. “We played great defense and pitched well. They just out-hit us.”
Lebanon graduates nine: Carrier, Yates, Calvin Bates, Alex Felix, Preston Hewett, Zach Howland, Josh Nicholson, Joe Roberts and Ryan Tanski.
NEWPORT — The Tigers concluded their campaign with an NHIAA D-III preliminary round loss to the Huskies at Bill Bates Field.
Newport loses Bryce Willey, Josh Sharron, Tanner Proper, Chase Hamilton, Hayden Patenaude and Josh Orlowski to graduation.