Western players hit their stride

By Bart Isley

Published: June 7, 2008

BLACKSBURG — Western Albemarle’s win in the VHSL state finals was a fantastic finish to a dominating season, but the state final match also provided a chance for redemption for the Warriors’ Jamie Thomas, Ben Fitts and Joey Manilla.

Thomas bounced back from a less-than-stellar day on the court in Friday’s semifinal against Harrisonburg to put together a dominating performance in Saturday’s singles match. The Western senior stormed to a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Lucas Hakkenberg that gave the Warriors a big leg up early in the match.

“Yesterday’s opponent was better [than me] — he surprised me,” Thomas said. “But today I realized what I had to do and it just went real well. I couldn’t think of a better way to finish off a singles career.”

Thomas, who is headed to Colorado next year, had told Western coach Charles Ix that he wasn’t going to pick up a racquet again for a long while because of all the skiing he had scheduled. But now he seems willing to rethink that option — in a little while.

“I’m thinking about playing some tournaments this summer,” Thomas said. “But I’ve got beach week coming up, so I think I’m just going to enjoy that.”

Fitts and Manilla also bounced back from a frustrating outing Friday against Abingdon’s doubles duo in the doubles semifinals. The pair won the first set of their match with Salem’s formidable No. 1 doubles team of Patrick O’Keefe and Will Drougas and the Warriors’ duo was leading in the second set.

“It was night and day,” Ix said. “That’s the best that I’ve seen them play in a long time.”

Fitts and Manilla both credited being in the team atmosphere as a big reason for the improvement, but shining a spotlight on the tandem’s faults on Friday didn’t hurt either.

“It’s a lot easier to play well after you’ve played poorly,” Fitts said. “You know what you were doing wrong and you can focus on that.”

Fitts, a senior and doubles specialist, wrapped up his career with back-to-back state titles, and the two players’ final outing also seemed to spark some inspired play.

“Playing together for the last time really made us click,” Manilla said.

A worthy opponent

Salem gave Western one of its toughest tasks of the year, and appropriately so — the Spartans had ended two unbeaten seasons already this year. Salem knocked off Hidden Valley and Abingdon — both of which were unbeaten going into the match with the Spartans — in the postseason.

“Sometimes when you’re undefeated, it’s kind of a scary thing because you’re afraid that you’ve got to have a loss somewhere,” said Salem coach Michael Gibson. “So I was hoping we’d be it.”

That giant-killer mentality made Western coach Charles Ix a little nervous about Salem pulling off the upset.

“I’ve been following their matches and I would have much rather played Jamestown because it’s a known entity,” Ix said. “I was a little wary.”