SACO — After dropping the first set, Thornton Academy’s Jared Waterhouse and Dylan Gooch bounced back to beat Portland’s Henry Gates and Daniel Mencher for the SMAA boys tennis doubles championship Tuesday.

“It’s crazy, we have been working so hard for this all season, so its great to get it finally,” said Gooch.

TA assistant coach Chris Kohl was happy to see their hard work finally pay off.

“It’s awesome. They’ve been doing it for four years … they’ve worked so hard,” said Kohl. “They set this goal a while back, and although today wasn’t one of their cleanest matches, you sometimes need to gut out those wins and they showed the heart of a champion today.”

TA dropped the first set 6-4, but battled back taking the second and third sets 6-4, 6-4 to secure the win .

Gooch and Waterhouse tried to simplify the game when falling behind.

“We definitely had our ups and downs today, but we just went back to the basics. We got those big points and went back to our roots and did what we did,” said Gooch.

“We slowed the game down, we took a few moments if we missed a serve … taking our time was definitely a big factor,” said Waterhouse.

TA head coach Andrew Carlson was proud of his players’ poise throughout the match.

“The two of them have played a lot of tennis, so they both know that in the game of tennis there are a lot of ebbs and flows. Sometimes you are going to do everything right but lose points and sometimes you are not going to do things right and win points,” said Carlson. “They needed to play in the moment, and sometimes they got out of the moment, but in the end they came together and said, ‘we need to play point to point, game to game, and if we play point to point we’re going to win this match.’”

Kohl also felt that communication was key in the comeback.

“They were talking to each other, they were keeping themselves positive. They knew they weren’t doing things correct, but they were always working together … sometimes in those situations you see teams work against each other, but they were in it together with a lot of positive talk,” said Kohl.

As a team, TA finished the season with an undefeated record and the first seed in the Class A south conference – and Waterhouse and Gooch saw Tuesday’s win as a confidence boost heading into the playoffs.

“It feels good heading into (the playoffs), it gives us a lot of confidence. I’m sure we will see (Portland) again … this will be a big boost going in,” said Gooch.

“It’s definitely a landmark win and it feels good, but we need to make sure we aren’t overconfident going into the playoffs,” said Waterhouse.

Carlson hopes the pair will continue to work hard heading into the tournament and was proud of the leadership they showed Tuesday.

“This is good training, a good opportunity for them to work through some things going into the playoffs,” said Carlson. “We need everyone to win at their position, but today I think they showed great leadership for themselves but more importantly for the team.”

— Sports Staff Writer Alex Sponseller can be reached at [email protected] or at 282-1535 ext. 323. Follow the Journal Tribune Sports Department on Twitter @ JournalTsports.