H.S. tennis: College Station duo overcome Abilene Wylie's Short, Crousen in state finals
HELOTES – A few points here and there, and Abilene Wylie’s Trevor Short and Stealey Crousen might won their school’s first Class 5A spring tennis title.
Instead, it was Paxton O’Shea and Maya Diyasheva who came up big in the big moments.
The College Station duo overcame a 6-4 first-set loss to take down Short and Crousen 6-3, 6-4 in the Class 5A mixed doubles finals Wednesday at Northside Tennis Center.
“They won a few more of the big points at the critical times, and that’s what the good teams do,” Wylie coach Mark Hathorn said. “We did it the first set, and they did it the second and third sets. There’s the 30-alls, the break points, the game points that they won in the second and third sets.
"If you took stats on that match, there were probably five or six points that made the difference in that match. That’s the way a good tennis match is.”
Not that it made losing a grueling, near three-hour match any easier.
“We played really well,” said Crousen, a senior. “Couldn’t have asked for a better match, other than a win. We played our hearts out. We left it all out there. It sucks that we didn’t win. But, you know, only one wins at the end of the day.”
Short, a junior, said the College Station team just played better.
“I thought we fought hard, but they were the better team on the day,” Short said. “I don’t know what else we could have done.”
Diyasheva, a freshman, was steady, while her partner, O’Shea, presented problems at the net with his height and length. The junior made it state last year in boys doubles.
“That girl’s serve was good, and you’ve got a 6-foot-3 or 6-4 boy at the net,” Short said. “It’s hard to get it past him.”
Added Hathorn: “He played a little better than we anticipated. We knew the girl was outstanding. Big points. That was the difference.”
Short said there two big moments that turned the match for the College Station – the first when they broke Crousen’s serve in the second set and the second when they broke his serve in the third set.
“I think if me and Stealey had played them on any other day, like yesterday, we would have beaten them in two,” Short said. “But it wasn’t our day. It was theirs.”
Crousen and Short advanced to the finals with wins over Leander Rouse’s Shannon Barton and Lucas Alden (6-3, 6-0) and Frisco Lebanon’s Ashna Potluri and Aaditt Rishi (6-1, 6-2) on Tuesday.
It was the first time any Wylie player reached the title match in the spring since the school made the jump to Class 5A the 2018-19 season.
“When you look back at it, when it’s all said and done, we’ll be happy with the outcome,” said Hathorn, who is retiring after this season. “It definitely would have nice to have won that state championship.”
It would have been a storybook ending for Short and Crousen, but it was still pretty sweet to end the year playing in the last possible match on high school’s biggest stage.
“It’s disappointing, but I got to play the greatest match of my life with my best friend,” Crousen said. “That’s all I could ask for.”
Albany’s Marshall falls in finals
At San Antonio, Mason’s Mason Hatfield beat Albany’s Luke Marshall 7-5, 6-0 in the Class 2A boys singles final.
Marshall reached the final with wins over Sterling City’s Shane Pugh (6-2, 6-1) and Mason’s Quince Lawler (6-0, 6-0).
Marshall reached the state semifinals last year but had to retire in the second set with an injury.
Benjamin duo falls in three
At San Antonio, Mertzon’s Irion County’s Melanie Rainey and Tate Cormier fought back from a 4-6 first-set loss to beat Benjamin’s Tallon Hayes and Valeria Zavala 7-6 (3), 6-2 for the Class 1A mixed doubles title at Blossom Tennis Center.
This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: College Station duo outlast Abilene team in state tennis finals
