PORTLAND — The Thornton Academy doubles team of Asher Thompson and Jack Cannon knocked off the top seed in the Southwestern Maine Activities Association boys tennis doubles tournament semifinals on Saturday.
The Trojans would need to pull off one more upset to take home the SMAA title — and a talented duo from Portland would be standing in their way.
Thompson and Cannon, who were the fourth seed, put up a strong fight in the SMAA final on Wednesday afternoon, but Portland’s Ian McCallum and Sam Mermin would prove to be too much for the Trojans.
The second-seeded team from Portland won the SMAA championship with a 6-1, 2-6, 6-4 victory at Deering Oaks. McCallum and Mermin were thrilled to win the league crown after falling in the finals last season.
“It’s awesome … it was sort of our goal all year and it’s great to accomplish it,” said Mermin.
The TA duo would have loved to capture the SMAA title, but they certainly weren’t disappointed with their performance.

“It was such a great experience. I’ve played in the doubles tournament all four years in high school and each year I’ve gone a little bit farther. It’s such an honor to play in the tournament against such a high quality Portland team,” said Thompson.
“It was great. I was surprised that we got here because we had to face (No. 1) Falmouth in the semifinals, so it was exciting just to get here,” added Cannon.
McCallum and Mermin would cruise in the opening set as they won 6-1, but the TA squad answered with an impressive 6-2 win in the second set.
“We played very good in the first set, and then after we lost the second set we just gathered and said, ‘OK, they got the best of us and we just need to bounce back, play better tennis than them.’ We went out and we did,” McCallum said.
The third set would go back-and-forth as TA took a 3-2 lead before Portland won the next two games to take a 4-3 advantage.
The Trojans tied it back up at 4-4, but Mermin and McCallum responded with two straight wins to capture the title.
“It was a good match. We played some of our better tennis in the first set and we knew the second set was not going to be as easy as that,” said Mermin. “It was tough to lose (the second set) and I think the third set they started playing great. We were not as clean as we were in the first set and we had to grind it out.”
Thompson was proud of how he and Cannon responded after the lopsided loss in the opening set.
“We just had to persevere like we’ve been doing all season. We knew we were down that first set and we were going to have to win two more,” said Thompson. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get that third set, but we came back and put up a good fight.”
Thornton Academy assistant coach Chris Kohl was proud of Cannon and Thompson — and impressed with the play of both teams.
“It was great to see them get here and that third set was a real high quality set. It’s not a match that they have to go back and say, ‘oh, if I did this or did that.’ It was just a good, quality doubles match,” said Kohl.
— Sports Editor Pat McDonald can be reached at pmcdonald@journaltribune.com or at 282-1535 ext. 322. Follow the Journal Tribune Sports Department on Twitter @JournalTsports.