SEATTLE — Steve McCall had more history with one of his opponents in the finals of last week’s Northwest District 4A doubles tournament than his partner of two years.

While McCall and teammate Scott Bourne go back a ways as Shorewood’s premier doubles combo, McCall and Jackson’s Alex Yee go back even further.

The friendly rivals had faced off in the district finals the past two years, with Yee coming out on top both times with two different partners.

This year, McCall finally had Yee’s number.

Undeterred by a ragged start, McCall and Bourne regrouped for a hard-fought 7-5, 7-6 (4) victory over Yee and Alex Lin Oct. 31 at the University of Washington to claim the district doubles crown.

The Shorewood juniors will return to the Class 4A state championships in the spring as the Northwest District’s top seed. It will be McCall’s third consecutive state appearance and Bourne’s second straight.

“They definitely wanted to get back to state,” Shorewood coach Corliss Liekkio said. “They felt like they’d have a good shot at doing well there. With the teams that have graduated, it’s going to be wide open.”

The same two teams also met up in the finals of the Western Conference 4A South Division championships a week earlier, with McCall and Bourne outlasting Yee and Lin in three sets to earn a No. 1 seed to districts.

In the rematch, the Jackson duo capitalized on a succession of unforced errors by McCall and Bourne and raced to a 4-1 first-set advantage.

“My returns were horrible,” McCall said. “Scott sat me down and said, ‘Relax. Shorten it up.’ It turned around from there. We picked up the intensity.”

Bourne thought he and McCall let their emotions get the best of them early on, which wound up causing more mistakes.

“We were getting angry and we were letting our anger rule the match,” Bourne said. “It was bringing us down. We sat down and said we’ve got to channel our anger.”

After evening the set at 4-all, McCall and Bourne dropped the next game and fended off two set points before McCall held serve. They broke Lin to go up 6-5 — their first lead of the match — and finally secured the set on their fourth set point.

“Once we tied it up 4-4, we felt like we could do this,” Bourne said. “At first we thought we were going to get shut out. We set goals for ourselves. Every game was the beginning of a new set. We looked at it that way.”

In the second set McCall and Bourne broke Lin again to seize a 5-3 edge. But Yee and Lin reeled off three straight games for a temporary 6-5 lead before McCall held serve to force a tiebreaker.

Bourne broke a 3-3 tie with a crisp volley and later split Yee and Lin with a forehand down the middle of the court to set up three match points.

“I didn’t want to go to a third set,” McCall said. “They’re really good players. They’d probably wear us down after awhile because they keep the ball in play so well.”

McCall and Bourne made an early exit from last spring’s state tournament after McCall injured his left shoulder diving for a ball in an opening-round loss.

Bourne looked more than a little concerned when McCall took another nasty spill late in the second set of last week’s district finals.

“Every time he goes down, I’m scared,” Bourne said. “I’m really scared that it’s going to be over.”

Only the top two singles and doubles finishers at Northwest Districts received state berths.

Jackson’s Mike Reading and Oak Harbor’s Scott Donnell earned the singles berths and Snohomish’s Tyler Stocker and Zach Gordon defeated Yee and Lin to clinch the second doubles berth.

After winning pigtail matches earlier in the week to qualify for districts, Shorewood’s Sachin Narvekar finished fourth in singles and teammates Peter Reni and Aaron Lee took fourth in doubles.

Though they weren’t paired up until the postseason, Liekkio had an inkling Reni and Lee would be a strong combination.

“Every time they went out there, they played better than the time before,” Liekkio said.

Shorewood sophomore Nomar Mapalo, a state qualifier as a freshman, pulled out of the singles draw after twisting his ankle in the first game of a first-round victory.

“It was fun to have all four entrants at districts,” Liekkio said. “I’d never had all four make it past the first round of the league tournament before.”

McCall and Bourne aren’t fans of the seven-month gap that separates the Western Conference boys tennis season and the state championships. They both play other sports, but plan on logging plenty of court time during the layoff.

“We play all through the winter and spring,” McCall said, “and the last couple weeks before state, we really pick it up.”