E.C. Glass edges Albemarle in region final

E.C. Glass has been a constant thorn in Albemarle boys tennis coach Chip Grobmyer’s side. The Hilltoppers have ended the Patriots’ season in their last two meetings in the Northwest Region tournament, but this time, they took the court in Friday night’s championship match against their Lynchburg rivals with a Group AAA bid already in their back pocket.

As they had before, Patriots gave the Hilltoppers all they could handle, but in the end it wasn’t quite enough as Glass narrowly prevailed, 5-4.

The two teams entered doubles play deadlocked at a 3-3, but Albemarle fell short in two of its last three matches of the night.

“We were really hoping to get to 3-3 in the singles,” Grobmyer said.  “We’d have loved to squeeze it out to 4-2, but 3-3 was what we needed.  At that point we knew that this match was going to come down to the number two doubles team.  The knew they were going to win one doubles match, we knew we would win one.“

In the singles portion, fans were treated to a fantastic match between Albemarle’s Will Murray and Glass’ Scottie Taylor.  Murray took the first set 7-5, and worked even harder in the second set, winning 7-6 (10-8), all the while hampered by a nagging leg cramp.

“My right leg was cramping up pretty much the whole game,” Murray said. “I was just trying to go for winners because I couldn’t stand to rally. I just got lucky.”

That injury wound up costing the Patriots, as Murray, who usually plays on the number two doubles team, was ruled out by the school’s trainer.

That left Albemarle scrambling to fill the void.  Eventually the Patriots chose Brian Chen, who had yet to play a doubles match so far this season.

As expected by both sides, the two squads split the number one and three matches and so all eyes turned to Chen and Michael Koenig, who faced Patrick Brown and John James.  After a long fight, the Glass duo came out on top, 6-3, 6-4.

“All the players came down the hill on to the court after the match to congratulate Brian and Michael,” Grobmyer said.  “Brian really gave a heroic effort.  That match was very close, it might not look like it at 6-3, 6-4, but they came very close to pulling that one out.”

For Grobmyer, it’s deja vu all over again, as three years ago the Patriots coach had to replace his son, Rob, on the number two doubles team due to an ankle injury.  Fittingly, the Hilltoppers won that match, 5-4.

Yet in spite of the loss, Albemarle (19-3) is still feeling good about its season.

“We set the goal of reaching the state tournament at the beginning of the season,” Grobmeyer said.  “So that meant winning a region semifinal match, and we’ve already done that.“

Grobmeyer is also optimistic about the Patriots’ draw in the state quarterfinals - Frank Cox.

“All I know is that you never want to Mills Godwin or Robinson,” Grobmeyer said, referring to the Richmond and Northern Virginia powers.  “I don’t know much about Cox, it could turn out that they’re a powerhouse too, but we’ll wait and see what happens.”