Sofia Mavor of Yarmouth stretches for a return during the girls’ singles state final against Coco Meserve of Brunswick. Mavor dropped only one game as she captured her second state championship. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
Madelynn Deprey is one of Maine’s finest high school athletes. A junior at Caribou High, she has scored 1,000 points in basketball and earned All-State honors.
She uses her quickness and agility to great effect on the tennis courts as well, and this spring helped the Vikings win their first state championship in 29 years, in the Class B final. That is where she met Sofia Mavor, a senior at Yarmouth High.
Living far from southern Maine in Aroostook County, Deprey had never seen Mavor play. She searched online for video, but came up empty. So her first look at Mavor came from across the net in the No. 1 singles match of the state final earlier this month at Bates College in Lewiston.
“I usually don’t have a problem getting to balls,” Deprey said. “Athleticism usually carries me in tennis. But every ball was going by me. I just had never seen somebody hit a ball that hard in real life.”
Mavor won, 6-0, 6-0, like most of her matches, but Caribou was able to claim the title by sweeping doubles and winning No. 3 singles. Even so, Deprey had nothing but praise for Mavor.
“I knew (Mavor) was unbelievable, and she was,” Deprey said. “She proved exactly why she’s No. 1 in the state.”
After a two-year hiatus from high school competition, Mavor rejoined the Yarmouth High program and claimed a second singles state championship. Along the way, she never lost more than one game in any set. She even had two golden sets, so named because she won all 24 points.
She is our choice as Player of the Year for girls’ tennis.
“It’s been a long season, but it’s been good,” Mavor said. “I think I learned to balance my schedule with the high school tennis and my own practice as well. It is a time commitment, but it’s been fun.”
As a freshman in 2021, Mavor went unbeaten and won the singles state final over Waynflete senior Morgan Warner, 6-4, 6-0. Mavor became the third member of her family to win a Maine singles state championship, joining her father, Brian (1982 for Cape Elizabeth), and sister, Lana (2017 for Yarmouth).
Chris Hill, then an assistant coach at Yarmouth, is in his second year as head coach of the Clippers and said Mavor dominates not simply with her ample physical ability, but with her awareness and instincts as well. The morning of the Class B South final, Mavor and two other Yarmouth seniors were running on fumes, having gone through commencement and Project Graduation the previous day and night.
Hill could see something was amiss and spoke with Mavor between sets. She told him her body wasn’t reacting to what her brain was asking. He told her two hours of sleep might be the cause.
Mavor still prevailed, 6-1, 6-0, to lead a singles sweep for the No. 2 Clippers in a 3-2 victory over No. 5 Cape Elizabeth.
“She maybe lost a game, but her intelligence on the court is enough to overcome a physical ailment,” Hill said. “She’s that smart. So when you put the two together, the intelligence with the physical dominance, she’s a power.”
In the singles tournament in May, Mavor shut out two unseeded players, then dispatched No. 9 Kira Gregor of Cony, No. 4 Sofia Kirtchev of Falmouth and defending champion Coco Meserve, the No. 2 seed from Brunswick, while dropping only a single game against each opponent.
Mavor already has moved on from high school. She recently began six-week basic cadet training at the Air Force Academy, just north of Colorado Springs. She plans to continue playing tennis while exploring business and nursing options.
“She’s going to thrive in that further learning in college,” said Hill, a science teacher who taught Mavor in an Anatomy & Physiology class two years ago. “She’s just a fantastic student, very engaged.”
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