South Kingstown’s Alex Geremia, above, overmatched Bay View’s Rebecca Curran in the state girls singles title match yesterday.

The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

PAWTUCKET –– She waited two years to make her appearance on the Rhode Island high school girls tennis scene, but once she started, South Kingstown’s Alex Geremia didn’t waste any time taking over the spotlight.

Geremia, who didn’t play tennis in her first two years at South Kingstown High, completed her ascension to the top of the state high school tennis ladder yesterday as she rolled to a 55-minute, 6-1, 6-3 victory over Bay View sophomore Rebecca Curran in the title match of the Interscholastic League state singles tournament at Slater Park.

Geremia’s victory gave South Kingstown its first girls state singles champion in the 32-year history of Interscholastic League girls tennis competition and makes South Kingstown the home of both the reigning girls and boys state singles champions. Kyle Burke, a South Kingstown senior, has won the last two state boys titles and is expected to try for his third state crown in the spring.

The Geremia-Burke championships marks only the second time that both the reigning boys and girls champions have been students at the same school. Former Wheeler School stars Sheri Woodcomb and Alex Howard were state champions during the 1992-93 school year.

For the first two years of her high school career Geremia, a junior who is ranked 10th in the New England USTA girls 18-and under rankings, had spent her autumn afternoons working on her game with professional teachers.

But this year, she wanted the experience of being on a high school team.

“This is a real nice group of girls,” Geremia said of her South Kingstown teammates. “I always thought it would be nice to play for my high school and this year my practice (with professional instructors) worked out so I could do it at night after high school (matches).”

Yesterday she showed why she has not lost a set in 13 high school matches this season, including the regular season and the singles tournament. The total of four games she lost to Curran in yesterday’s two sets equaled the most games Geremia lost in any high school match.

Right from the outset, she demonstrated a complete game as she mixed powerful forehands with wide-angle slice backhands, effective net volleys and some well-placed drop shots.

“My forehand,” Geremia replied when asked what she considered the strongest part of her game.

Indeed, it was a constant barrage of Geremia’s powerful, cross-court forehands that put Curran on the defensive early in the first set. Time after time, Geremia’s forehand would send Curran running deep to her forehand, setting the stage for a short return that Geremia would then angle a slice-backhand to the other side of the court for a winner.

It took Geremia only 25 minutes to close out the 6-1 decision in the first set. The 16-year-old opened the match with a break of Curran’s serve, then won four more games before Curran finally managed to cut the deficit to 5-1 by breaking Geremia’s service in the sixth game. But Geremia quickly came back and closed out the set with four straight points in the seventh game.

Geremia may have only given up three points in two of the seven games under the Interscholastic League no-add scoring system, but the points didn’t come easy for the Rebels star.

Curran, a first-team All-State selection last year as a freshman, only made a few unforced errors in the first set and continually forced Geremia into extensive baseline rallies. But whenever she needed the big point, Geremia seemed to find a winner in her arsenal of shots.

Geremia also jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second set before Curran cut the deficit to 3-2 by winning eight straight points.

But that was the high point of the day for Curran.

Geremia, who played the first 12 games without wearing a hat despite a glaring sun, put on her Red Sox cap at the 3-2 changeover and quickly captured the next three games. Curran managed to cut the deficit to 5-3 by holding serve in the eighth game, but Geremia then captured the title by winning a 3-3 game with drop-shot.

“Usually I play with my hat on, but I was playing well at the beginning so I kept it off, but I knew I had to focus so I put it back on,” said Geremia with a laugh.

Geremia had earned her finals berth with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Lincoln’s School Asha Tipirneni in the semifinals on Saturday and Curran had advanced to the title match with a 6-0, 6-2 semifinal triumph over La Salle’s Nicole Kyle.

Bay View did win a state championship yesterday as the Bengals’ duo of Victoria Babcock and Andrea Clark captured the state doubles title with a 6-3, 6-1 victory over the Mount St. Charles team of Alyssa Marciniak and Meghan Lydon in yesterday’s title match.

jgillool@projo.com