BEDFORD — They believed.

And the Londonderry High School boys’ tennis team, led by junior co-captains Mike Paquette and Harrison Max, went out and turned that belief into a second state championship in the last three years on Thursday on the Bedford High School courts.

The Lancers, undefeated for the season at 17-0, finished off a 7-2 win for the Division I title over Exeter that was postponed on Tuesday afternoon by thunderstorms.

“It’s great,” Max said shortly after he and Matt McKinney closed out the title with a win at No. 1 doubles. “It’s so much harder to get that second title.”

Exeter, which won its first tennis championship in 2009, has now lost in the championship each of the last three seasons. The Blue Hawks were 15-2 this year with both losses to Londonderry.

“That’s plenty of motivation for next year,” said Exeter coach Justin Tardif, who had only one senior among his top six singles players.

Londonderry returns each of its top six.

The Lancers won three of the five singles matches that were completed before the storm on Tuesday and in the sixth, Paquette had a match point with a chance to give his team a commanding 4-2 lead going into the three doubles matches.

Just before Paquette took the court to finish his match on Thursday, Londonderry coach Bill Knee pulled the player aside and showed him the blue stone with the word “Believe” inscribed on it that was in his hand.

His chemistry teacher had given Paquette the stone and he passed it on to the coach before the finals began on Tuesday.

“Believe and have confidence and you can persevere,” Paquette said.

Exeter’s Lino Cantarella survived the first match point and got the game to deuce three times before Paquette made a nice return on a good serve and came up with a winning point to take the game and give Londonderry its 4-2 lead.

With Max controlling the backcourt and McKinney taking charge at the net, the Lancer doubles unit opened up a 6-2 lead on Corey Guen and Ty Cloyd. At that point, Londonderry led the three doubles matches, 6-1, 5-2 and 5-2.

Exeter fought back in all three, but the Lancers answered the challenge.

They clinched their latest championship on a pretty drop volley by Max that the Exeter players could not reach.

Max and McKinney won their match 8-4; Paquette and Tim Court beat Ryan Pasternak and Cantarella, 8-5; and Ryan Broderick and Nick Beaton completed the sweep of doubles with an 8-5 decision over Chris Lietz and Ben MacDonald.