Fox Chapel flew under the radar throughout the season, but there were signs this is a team that should not be counted out.
“When we played Shady Side Academy, it was our first match back from spring break and they hadn’t picked up a racquet for a week,” Fox Chapel boys tennis coach Alex Slezak said. “But I’m not the kind of coach who is going to duck competition, so I said we were going to play them.”
Play them they did. And the Foxes were dealt a 4-1 loss to the Bulldogs that decided the Section 3 title.
Boy, did they make up for it.
Fox Chapel jumped out to a quick lead when Mason Friday and Travis Malone won the No. 1 doubles match in straight sets and Jack Delaney and Ben Hallman made it a sweep at No. 2. The Foxes didn’t stop there as they came away with a stunning 5-0 victory over fourth-seeded Shady Side Academy at Washington & Jefferson to win its fifth WPIAL Class 3A title in the last six years.
But this was a completely different team than the ones that rolled to four consecutive championships from 2016-19. Those had dominant singles players in Robby Shymansky and Sidd Rajupet, where this squad is a team in every sense.
Fox Chapel did not have any individual play in a section final, yet the Foxes still won it all..
“Tennis, oftentimes, the individual becomes bigger than the program,” Slezak said. “These guys have been friends forever and they really do play for something bigger than their own individual things.”