COLUMBIA — If it wasn’t for a tennis player named Sebastien Cousineau, Kent County High School junior Sebastien Cousineau would have made program history last week with his third-place finish at the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association tournament.
Yup, Cousineau is competing with himself to have the Trojans’ best finish ever in the state tournament.
Last year, as a 16-year-old sophomore, he placed second in Class 1A boys singles to become the first Kent County High School tennis player to reach a final at states.
He lost in straight sets to Boonsboro senior Hunter Liao, who also would make history as Maryland’s first four-time boys singles champion.
Not for nothing, it should be noted that Liao was 68-0 in his high school career — without ever losing a set.
This spring, with Liao off to college playing at the top of the lineup in singles and doubles for Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Maryland high school tennis landscape was markedly different.
The door was open for others with state title aspirations, including KCHS’ Cousineau, now 17.
A three-time team MVP, Cousineau went 13-0 during the regular season and tacked on three more wins — all in straight sets — while repeating as the 1A East Region champion.
He entered the state tournament at Wilde Lake Tennis Club in Columbia as the No. 1 seed for Class 1A boys singles.
Rain pushed back the start of the state tournament from Friday, May 22 to Memorial Day Monday, May 25, and what was to be a two-day tournament was shortened to one day.
Cousineau would play three matches, all on the same day.
He swept No. 8 seed Vince Gigliotti of Patterson Mill in the quarterfinal round, 6-2, 6-3, to improve to 17-0.
Cousineau would lose for the first and only time this season in the semifinals in a 10-8 tiebreaker after splitting sets with No. 4 seed Brady Ernst of Clear Spring.
Cousineau won the first set, 6-1, but Ernst came back to win the second set, 6-3, to force a breaker.
Harford Tech senior Keagan Luu, the tournament’s No. 2 seed, dropped only one game in the championship match against Ernst.
Meantime, Cousineau would go on to place third, rallying from a set down in the consolation match to win a lengthy tiebreaker after splitting sets with No. 3 seed Brennan Stewart of Pikesville, the South Region champ.
Stewart won the first set, 6-1, and Cousineau won the tying set, 6-4.
Cousineau took the breaker, 15-13, when Stewart hit a forehand into the net for match point.
Cousineau finished 18-1 this year, bettering last year’s 13-2 record.
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In 1997, Kent County’s mixed doubles team of Megan Bramble and Derek Schreiber placed third in the state.
That was a generation ago and a very different era in Maryland high school tennis. Back then there was no breakdown into divisions [i.e., Class 1A, 2A, 3A and 4A] based on school enrollment. Most often the state champs were from the largest schools.
Since 2019, the MPSSAA has used a tennis championship classification based on student count, with 1A being the smallest and 4A being the largest.
