Telegraph photo by TOM KING Hollis Brookline's Max Burns lunges to hit a return during the Cavaliers' 8-1 loss to Portsmouth in Thursday's Division II finals in Bedford.

BEDFORD – The Hollis Brookline High School boys tennis team would love to make a trade.

No, they don’t want to lose any of their players. But they’d be happy to deal their 5-4 win over Portsmouth way back on April 5 for the Clippers’ 8-1 triumph in Thursday’s Division II finals.

“Absolutely,” Hollis Brookline coach Jim McCann said. “We had them the second match of the year. … We could easily lose to them, but if we lose to them it should be closer. We should have done better.”

Instead another tough title loss for the Cavs, who went into the day seeded No. 1, 16-0, hoping to fullfill the promise that their young nucleus has seemingly had for the last couple of years. But the No. 2 16-1 Clippers took five of six singles to clinch the title early.

Trailing 3-1, the Cavaliers were hoping to pull out teeth gnashing tiebreakers at the remaining matches, Nos. 1 and 5. But at No. 1, Nic Vahe fell 9-8 (7-5 tiebreaker) after fighting off a match point and leadin 8-7 against Portsmouth’s Ryan Porter, and then a few minutes later Ben Zielinski fell 9-8 (7-1) to Clipper Eliot Danley at No. 5 and Danley’s teammates mobbed the court.

“Out of the six singles matches, four of them were close, McCann said. “Two of them went to tiebreakers. We needed one of them to go our way, and it didn’t.

“They just hit a few more shots than we did. They seemd to play a little better at the right time. That was the difference. They’re a good team.”

“They stayed focused through the tiebreaker,” Portsmouth coach Anthony Sillitta said of both Porter and Danley. “And when it came down to big point time, they played the big points well. That was the difference.

“I liked our chances coming in. I felt we could go 4-2 in singles. I thought we had the ability. We played them the second match of the year, but since then our lineup changed. … We got deeper.”

McCann thought the Cavs did too with the return of No. 3 David Cherkassky, who had been out for the first two tourney matches and had looked great in recent practices. But before you could blink, Portsmouth’s Nick Shultz disposed of him quickly, 8-0. And Max Hitchcock did almost the same to HB’s Alex Anghel at No. 6, 8-1. The Cavaliers’ only answer was Darius Paradie’s 8-3 win over Jack Maddon at No. 2, handing Maddon his first loss of the season.

But McCann saw something different in his team, feeling most of his players looked just a little off, a little sluggish, which was not their usual look during the season and in the first two rounds of the tournament. Or the regular season for that matter.

“I think they were feeling a little pressure,” McCann said. “We had a good run, a good season, undefeated (coming in), so I think there was pressure to do well. I don’t know. They played well, but they didn’t quite look the way I’m used to seeing.”

And that was evident, for example, when Max Burns lost a tough 8-5 decision at No. 4 to Clipper Addison Bloom after being up 5-2. Ouch.

The teams went ahead and played doubles, and it was a Clipper sweep in albeit three close matches. Vahe/Cole Lorig lost 8-6 to Maddon/Schultz at No. 1; Paradie/Anghel fell 9-8 (7-2) at No. 2 to Porter/Bloom, and Burns/Zielinski lost 8-6 to Darley/Hitchcock at No. 3.

Now the HB window of this nucleus is shrinking, with likely next season the best shot at a crown.

“We’re pretty disappointed in ourselves, but they played really well,” Paradie said of the Clippers. “They really picked up their level from the last time. We feel a lot of the matches could have gone either way, I think we had three tiebreakers.

“It’s a little sad, but we always have next year. We’re only losing one player (Cherkassky), so we’ll still have a strong team.”

They had one this year, too, but for one day in late May it just wasn’t strong enough – not like in April.

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