Stories

Western headed back to Blacksburg

After taking four of the six singles matches, Western Albemarle only needed one win from any of its three doubles teams to wrap up its Group AA quarterfinal at home against Jamestown. Gray Evans and Timmy O’Shea were quick to answer, winning 12 of the 13 points they played to bring the match to an end with the Warriors heading back to Blacksburg, a seemingly annual tradition, thanks to the 5-2 win over the Eagles.

“Our four, five and six (in the ladder) are so strong that usually we can pretty much count on having at least three singles wins,” said Western coach Andew Wymer. “We’re going to ride those guys as long as we can. The main thing going into doubles was that even though we were ahead, everyone still had to get the point. You tell everyone to stay focused, get their point and we’ll celebrate at the end. Finish the match.”

Western’s top two players in Cam Scott and Will Diamond both faced great challenges in their singles matches, but while they fell respectively 6-1, 6-2 to William and Mary bound J.J. Willroy and 6-4, 6-3 to Sam Ross, the rest of the Warriors handled business to give Western an edge heading into doubles play.

Tom Lewis was the first to finish his match as he won in straight sets, 6-0, 6-0 and Evans was quick to follow, winning in the same fashion.

“I didn’t have to do anything special, it was a pretty clean match,” Evans said.

Drew Loving made it 3-0 for the Warriors after gutting out a tough first set 6-4 and finishing strong in the second 6-0. O’Shea, the lone junior amongst the seniors, pushed Western out front with a fourth win thanks to a 6-2, 6-3 victory.

“My match against (Rohan Kholi), he was a consistent player,” O’Shea said. “I really got through it with ground strokes and my net game was pretty good today so I was happy getting that victory.”

When it came to doubles, Evans and O’Shea didn’t mess around. The duo’s quick work brought the day to an early end as both played with an even-keeled approach.

“I think we were confident going in, but we also were hearing cheering for Cam and Will in the 1-2 match, so that helped out,” Evans said. “We also realized that we didn’t have to do a lot to win our match, just play consistent so that was a clean match too.”

Western will now face Blacksburg at Virginia Tech on Friday in the state semifinals.

“At some point all five of our seniors have played at this level before, so they’ve got a lot of experience and they are used to winning,” Wymer said. “They just don’t think there is another option and they play that way because they’ve had such good competition with each other for so long.”

Comments

comments