BY MATT STOUT

Moments after they clinched another Class L title with a 5-2 win over Manchester West on Tuesday, May 29, members of the Concord boys tennis team grabbed a blue jug filled with water, snuck up behind head coach Dave Page to douse him – and missed.

You’d think they have it down by now.

But the Crimson Tide didn’t rise to the top of the New Hampshire high school tennis world because of their post-game celebrations.

It’s what they’ve done during matches that’s made them a prolific state program.

Its reign over the league continued at the University of New Hampshire, as top-seeded Concord finished off a perfect 16-0 season to earn its second straight title, ninth in 10 years and 23rd overall.

Playing West – the only team to beat them in the last 10 years, including once in the title game two seasons ago -- the Tide left no doubt, taking four singles matches before Alex Pince and Will Hartigan secured the victory with an 8-1 win at No. 1 doubles.

It capped a year that, for the first time in a long time, began with a small cloud of doubt hanging over the Tide. They lost four out of their top six from last year’s team, and welcomed a new No. 1 singles player in Hartigan, a nationally ranked squash player.

Roughly two months later, Concord proved unbeatable -- again.

“I wouldn’t say it’s old hat,” said Pince as he grasped the championship plaque. “Every year is different, and there are challenges every year that we have to overcome. I would say it’s a special feeling every year, and this year, it was really sort of looked on by a lot of people as a rebuilding year. But we didn’t necessarily look at it that way from the beginning. We were confident, and we built on that.”

That showed throughout the match against the Blue Knights, who, at 15-2, took Concord to the brink in a 5-4 loss during the regular season, a contest they led 4-2 through singles play.

But Hartigan, an 8-4 winner over Courtney Mountifield; Pince, an 8-6 victor at No. 2 over Dustin Metayer; Ed Lee, an 8-4 winner over Kevin Lee; and Austin Scott, an 8-6 winner over West’s No. 6 player, C.J. Beck, reversed that outcome. Instead of three doubles wins, the Tide only needed one, which Pince and Hartigan captured in less than 30 minutes.

Scott Levick and Mason Caccia nearly helped Concord close it out beforehand, but they fell in close decisions, 9-7 for Levick at No. 4 and 8-5 Caccia at No. 5.

“He was in many ways the missing piece,” Page said of Hartigan. “To have him step into the No. 1 position and win the vast majority of his matches, that made a huge difference for us.”

And in the end, it meant nothing was different for Concord. Just another title and another chance to celebrate.