Brunswick duo falls short in tight Maine doubles tennis final

Brunswick came within a few points of changing the shape of the Maine boys doubles final, but Falmouth’s Luke Kusel and Eli Sidhu proved just steady enough to leave Bates College with another championship on May 17. The top-seeded Navigators beat Brunswick’s Brendan Shaw and Evan Williams, 7-5, 6-4, in a match that was far tighter than the straight-sets scoreline suggested.

The first set was almost headed to a tiebreak, and Brunswick helped make it that close by serving well early, especially Williams. For long stretches, the first 10 points stayed with the serving team, a sign that neither side was finding easy openings. Shaw and Williams kept the pressure on Falmouth and briefly looked capable of forcing the set into a final-turn scramble before the Navigators surged late to take it 7-5.

That finish mattered because it showed the difference between a good run and a repeat title. Falmouth did not dominate the match from the start; instead, Kusel and Sidhu had to weather Brunswick’s best stretch and wait for a chance to reset the second set. They found it after falling behind 4-1, when the Brunswick duo still appeared to have momentum. From there, Falmouth closed the gap, held off the Dragons’ push and finished the match before Brunswick could fully turn the set back in its favor.

For Brunswick, the loss still capped a strong postseason run and placed Shaw and Williams on one of the biggest high school tennis stages in Maine, at Bates College in Lewiston rather than a regular-season court. The Dragons had already earned their place among the state’s best, and the semifinal stage the day before had underscored how deep they had gone in the tournament.

Falmouth’s win also fit a larger pattern. The Navigators had won the boys doubles title in 2025, when Eli Sidhu and Luke Kusel captured the crown, and Falmouth had swept both boys and girls doubles titles in 2024. A June 2025 report also noted that Falmouth swept the Class A team tennis titles for a second straight year, with the boys program claiming its 15th championship and the girls their 17th. Against that kind of history, Brunswick still pushed the final to the edge, and that is what made the loss sting as much as the score suggests.