Sure, it was just a late season non-district match, but that didn’t take any of the edge off Western Albemarle and Albemarle’s battle Friday night.
Not when it’s the best competition either squad has faced in some time.
While Western rolled 9-0, the matches were all well-played, with Western’s Cam Scot and Pyo’s match at the No. 1 slot highlighting the slate. While Scot rolled 6-2 in the first set (the teams played best of three sets instead of the usual match to 10), the second matchup was hotly contested, with Pyo taking a 5-4 lead before Scot managed to rally to a 7-5 victory.
“Coming in I knew he was going to be a tough match,” Scot said. “So I made it my strategy to just come into the net as much as I could.”
Pyo explained that he felt like the Patriots, who don’t face a wealth of great competition in the Commonwealth District, struggled to reach Western’s level of intensity after dominating most of their opponents.
“Maybe talent wise, we’re the same or on par but playing wise we’re not up there with them,” Pyo said. “I feel like we’ve playing down and once we meet someone like them we just can’t play up to that level. They play smart, they play great tennis.”
Alex Preve and Teddy Nelson swept the next two spots for the Warriors. Preve won 6-3, 6-0 over Brian Chen while Nelson knocked off Ben Anderson 6-1, 6-0.
In the bottom half of the ladder, Andrew Loving, Will Diamond and Tom Lewis won out, with Lewis facing the stiffest test from Albemarle’s Timmy Shaw. Shaw bounced back from a 6-4 loss in the first set to roll 6-1 in the second. Lewis then gutted out a 10-8 win in the tiebreaker.
Western swept the doubles, winning 10-3, 10-4 and 10-8 respectively.
Western Albemarle (14-0, 10-0 Jefferson) plays at Goochland Monday at 5 p.m. Albemarle (14-2, 14-0 Commonwealth) hosts North Stafford in the Commonwealth quarterfinals, also Monday at 5 p.m.
