PAWTUCKET — The dream of an undefeated season and a league title for the East Providence High School girls' tennis team came to a disappointing end Saturday, Nov. 4, as next-door neighbor Providence Country Day was the 4-2, upset winners over the Townies for the Division III championship  at the Kenney Courts in Slater Park.

Iris Petrillo's two-set win over EP's Caroline Haggerty at fourth singles was the deciding point for the third-seeded Knights, who fell to EPHS 5-2 in the regular season meeting of the teams some two months earlier.

Petrillo's victory followed similar straight-set wins by Emma DiPardo and Clare Xie at first and second singles as well as the pairing of Eloise Wetherby and Mays Miller at first doubles.

"It was amazing. I didn't even think I would be able to move on that last point," said a still emotional Petrillo following her win. The senior, who lost to Haggerty 7-6 (7-1), 6-0 in their regular season meeting,  had tears of joy streaming down her face moments after her mates charged the court for a celebratory group hug.

"I'm so proud of our seniors," she added. "I knew Emma and Clare would win and I heard the screaming coming from where Mays and Eloise were playing so I knew it was going to come down to me and Marguerite (Cuzzone, PCD's third singles player). It was so close. I'm just so happy."

The championship was the third Rhode Island Interscholastic League title in program history for PCD, adding to its trophies earned for winning the now defunct Division IV in 2007 and 2009.

The title was the first for Knights' coach and city native Mike Silva, a 1982 EPHS graduate and former Townie player who now serves as general manager of Tennis Rhode Island-East Bay on Boyd Avenue off Warren Avenue.

Silva, who doubles as the Knights' boys' coach in the spring, has been at the helm of the PCD girls' squad since the fall of 2021.

"David beat Goliath. That's really it," said Silva, who also referred to the matchup between his small private school team and the large public school EPHS in that manner prior to Saturday's final.

"I thought it would probably be really close and that we would probably not get it, but my No. 3 and 4 (Cuzzone and Petrillo) really stepped up," he continued. "They came ready to play. Everyone came ready to play. They were relaxed. They wanted the win. They weren't nervous and it showed."

For East Providence, seeking its first title since winning D-III in 2016, its fall came to a close with a 17-1 overall record. It was first time in the 49-year history of the program a Townie team had gone undefeated during the regular season. EP was 15-0 and the No. 1 seed in the playoffs.

It was also the second year in a row the Townies have lost in the league finals and to a city foe. Bay View edged EPHS 4-3 in the 2022 D-II championship match at Slater.

"I'm proud of these girls beyond description. I don't think many people consider East Providence, never mind East Providence High School, as a tennis city. But the past couple of years we've really challenged that, those ideas, those thoughts. And we're in the conversation each and every year with these kids," said EPHS head coach Slade Sharma.

He continued, "And that's because of these kids. They want it. They love it. And I'm proud of them. It didn't come out the way we wanted, but the mission still stands. We know what we're up against, but we're going to keep pushing until East Providence is a tennis town and people know that."

The Townies made the first noises last Saturday, taking the initial point overall as the tandem of Tianna Brierly and Maggie Robinson beat PCD's Allison Bromberg and SiSi Rezendes 6-1, 6-1.

But barely a few minutes after that result, the Knights also got on the board when DiPardo finished off EP's Hope Moran 2-and-0 at the top of the ladder.

Again, though, the Townies regained the lead momentarily as Rylee Thurber and Ava Domingues were 2-and-3 winners over PCD's Hannah Eno and Nora Calhoun at third dubs.

But mirroring the back-and-forth nature of the early results, the Knights soon retied the score as Xie finished off the Townies' Lena Shanty 6-0 and 6-1 to again level the overall count at 2-2.

The turning point in the match literally came when the Knights turned around an outing they lost when sides met in PCD's opening match of the season on September 19.

EP's top duo of Isabella Hurley and Madison Luu defeated PCD's Wetherby and Miller 6-4 and 6-2 some eight weeks back. In the playoff finale, the Knights' No. 1 tandem returned the favor taking a 3-and-3 decision.

"The whole match I was thinking of a Serena Williams quote coach told us before the match: 'Never let anyone work harder than you," said Miller.

She continued, referring to their September match against EP, "That first game, that was the first time Eloise and I had played together."

Interjected Wetherby, "It was like our first time meeting."

Miller continued, "It kinda was. We didn't know each other before and now we're really close."

Added Wetherby, "We really, really wanted to win. We had some momentum and we wanted to win really bad...It was a lot of fun, and I think we play really well together."

"That was a huge match, huge," Silva said of his first doubles team. "I thought they could win. That was their first match together in the regular season. And they've both gotten better and better. They're both athletic. I was hoping for them to win, and they did. They showed their athleticism and their guts."

The overall score at 3-2 PCD, all eyes turned to the third and fourth singles matches being played right next to each other on two of the 10 courts at the Kenney Complex.

Petrillo took the first set over Haggerty at four while Cuzzone was doing the same and by the same 6-4 count for the Knights at No. 3 over EP's Megha Tenetti.

The PCD pair each also built early leads in their respective second sets, leaving not much doubt about the eventual outcome.

And it was Petrillo who was first off with the title-clinching point, winning her second set 6-3 as a Haggerty shot fell into the net on match point. Cuzzone wouldn't have been far behind, ahead in her outing by two service breaks.

"This is tough to do. It's tough to do, especially at this school. It's a small school," Silva said of the difficulty of winning a championship. "But anyone who watched this match saw it. Our kids fought, and that's huge."

For Sharma and the Townies, they were left to ponder what they need to do to get over the proverbial hump and win the title.

"We went into this thinking it was going to be  tight. The result in general, I wasn't surprised how close it was," Sharma said of his expectations before the match.

He added of his and his team's emotions during the contest, "I think when you want something as bad as we do, some of the tougher moments in the match I think you want them more because of how badly you want it to begin with. It starts with me as a coach to be mindful of that because I think passion is our power, but at the same time you don't want it to be a detriment to what we're doing here."