BLOOMFIELD HILLS — The slimmest of margins seem to separate Detroit Country Day, Ann Arbor Greenhills and Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood every year at the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 3 Boys Tennis Finals.

That was again the case this weekend, with those slimmest of margins turning out to be an unfortunate injury and an incredible comeback.

The end result was Greenhills and Country Day sharing the team title with 32 points, while host Cranbrook was third with 30 and wondering what might have been after a critical injury.

In the third set of a semifinal match at No. 1 singles, Cranbrook senior Ryan Michaels — the top seed going into the tournament — started cramping up while trailing 2-0 against No. 4 seed Teddy Staebler of Ann Arbor Greenhills. 

Michaels eventually couldn’t go on and had to retire from the match. Nobody will know if Michaels would have been able to come back to win, but regardless, Staebler continued his good play and took advantage of his championship opportunity.

Staebler went on to defeat Bhavesh Burramukku of St. Joseph in the final, storming back after losing the first set for a 1-6, 6-1, 6-2 win.

“I’ve played him a bunch of times,” Staebler said. “I haven’t had a ton of success, but I’ve seen a couple of things that work with him. In the past I usually win the first set and then struggle in the second set, but I lost the first set this time. I knew I was still in it in the second set. I was really able to play my game.”

The other big thing that skewed the end result was the unreal comeback by Greenhills’ No. 1 doubles team of William Pearce and Kabir Rajendra. 

The second-seeded team in the flight, the tandem met up with top-seeded Charlie Khaghany and Achyut Reddy of Country Day in the final. 

Khaghany and Reddy had downed Pearce and Rajendra at their Regional and held a 5-0 lead in the first set of the final. But Pearce and Rajendra put on a comeback for the ages, staving off a set point and ultimately rallying by winning seven games in a row to earn a 7-5 win.

“In tennis, one little shot or thing can change everything,” Rajendra said. “We started to gain some momentum, and next thing you know we are down 5-4 and we said we had a chance to pull out this set.”

Pearce and Rajendra then won the second set in a tiebreaker, winning the tiebreaker 7-5. In addition to the titles at No. 1 singles and No. 1 doubles, Greenhills got flight championships out of the team of Ajay Purohit and Charlie Rich at No. 2 doubles, and the team of Richard Wu and Kirtan Palapattu at No. 3 doubles. 

The team championship was Greenhills’ third straight, including last season’s in Division 4.

Greenhills head coach Eric Gajar said it was just a matter of his players giving themselves a chance by continuing to advance.

“You just sort of take care of what you can care of in your matches,” Gajar said. “We won nine of our 12 matches today. Our guys really stepped up against top-level competition.” 

Country Day snapped an uncharacteristically long title drought by winning its first since 2014. 

“I’ve been speaking about it to them for a long time,” Country Day head coach Nick Fiashchetti said. 

Country Day got titles in three flights, with Ricky Jeong prevailing as the top seed at No. 3 singles, second-seeded Adam Mahmoud winning at No. 4, and the second-seeded tandem of Rick Nie and Preston Blum winning at No. 4 doubles. 

“I felt like we did a good job of competing,” Fiashchetti said. “It seemed like our minds were locked in. That sometimes can lead to emotions spilling out. But that didn’t happen to us.”

Cranbrook’s title came courtesy of Kenneth Hu at No. 2 singles.

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PHOTOS (Top) Ann Arbor Greenhills’ Kabir Rajendra, left, and William Pearce talk things over during their comeback to win the No. 1 doubles championship Saturday. (Middle) Country Day’s Ricky Jeong volleys during his No. 3 singles title match. (Below) The Gryphons’ Teddy Staebler gets to a backhand during his No. 1 singles final. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)