Agonizing might be the best word for it.
“It’s painful and it’s happened like five times this year,” said Western Albemarle junior Tom Lewis. “(Will Diamond’s) been the one going through the hardest matches in three sets and it’s really painful to watch one of your own guys out there struggling like that against the elements. At some point you have to show you’re human.”
Lewis and his Western teammates, with all five other singles matches in the books, bore witness to a painfully long three-set battle at No. 4 singles between Western’s Diamond and Salem’s Michael Drougas. Lob shot after lob shot — at one moment drawing a smattering of laughter from the crowd because of the incredible length of a single point in the third set — dominated the duel between the Western junior and one of Salem’s two standout freshmen.
The two seemed content to battle the heat, wait on the other player to make an error and in the meantime hammer it out on the baseline. Both players gutted it out, with Diamond calling for a trainer at one point during the longer-than-two-hour showdown. But Drougas, eventually, grabbed the win and set the table for Salem in doubles where the Spartans needed just a single win among the three matches. Salem closed out a 5-3 victory with, appropriately, Drougas serving on the final point of a 6-0, 6-0 win at No. 2 doubles along with freshman Harrison O’Keefe.
“I knew taking two doubles matches off of them was going to be hard enough,” said Western coach John Hobson. “When we were down 4-2 we were playing with house money, and I thought our guys competed.”
Diamond, known for his ability to hang around and outlast, battled valiantly back from a 6-4 loss in the opening set by dominating the second set for a 6-1 win. After a 10-minute break the two came back to the court and the real showdown began. The set ended with Drougas edging Diamond 7-5 after Diamond managed to build a 4-1 lead.
In the ensuing doubles play, Western actually struck first with seniors Chris Bergin and Mathew Kochard teaming at No. 3 doubles t roll to a 6-1, 6-2 victory. That increased the pressure on Salem’s top two doubles teams, with the No. 1 group already on court and the No. 2 squad just getting rolling after Drougas took his allotted time to recover from the war of attrition in singles play.
At No. 1 doubles, Salem’s tandem of Patrick O’Keefe and Will Drougas, the seniors who’s freshman brothers play at three and four, gained ground by winning the opening set, but Western Albemarle’s lone senior in the top six of the singles ladder, Teddy Nelson, and No. 1 player Cam Scot refused to go away. The two won the second set to force a decisive third, putting together one of their best doubles performances of the season. They were trailing slightly when the team match ended in the midst of that third set.
“We seem to, when challenged, step up our game,” Nelson said. “We grooved well together and fed off of our energy. We really just picked our game up.”
O’Keefe and Drougas, later in the day, won the doubles state championship in straight sets. The group reportedly hadn’t lost a set in three seasons before dropping the second set to Nelson and Scot. The last set they lost? Hobson believed it was another Western duo, Ben Fitts and Joey Manilla, who last took a set off of them in the state championship in 2008.
The extended match at No. 1 doubles allowed the No. 2 squad to catch up as Harrison O’Keefe and Michael Drougas went to work against Andrew Loving and Ross Olivera, who subbed in for the exhausted, depleted Diamond in his usual spot. Olivera’s serve was actually on point, but the tandem of O’Keefe and Drougas proved an overwhelming combination. When the final point went in Salem’s favor, O’Keefe tossed his racket and started celebrating wildly. It was the second near-dogpile for the Spartans who also stormed the court after Drougas’ win over Diamond.
“I didn’t think Western would be this super-strong but they’re just really tough,” said Salem coach Mike Gibson. “I was kind of worried about the bottom of the lineup so the No. 4 match was the key match I thought. If it’s 3-3 you’ve still got to win two of the doubles and the way it was looking I’m not sure we were going to get two of the doubles.”
Patrick O’Keefe, the four-time individual state champion, dispatched Scot at No. 1 singles (though the Western junior took five games off O’Keefe five more than the Salem senior lost in the individual state championship final), while O’Keefe’s doubles partner Will Drougas knocked off Nelson at No. 2. Harrison O’Keefe then beat Andrew Loving at No. 3. When Lewis and Gray Evans took the fifth and sixth matches, Salem led 3-2.
Western wraps an incredible season where the Warriors won the Jefferson District championship, the Region II title and rolled into the state finals with a 5-0 thrashing of E.C. Glass. The Warriors finish at 21-1.
