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West Valley’s Forest Owen and Ken Sample closed out their high school tennis careers in style on Saturday afternoon in Anchorage.

Owen and Sample teamed up to capture the boys doubles title at the ASAA State Tournament by defeating Juneau’s Aaron Cohen and Brian Vander, 6-1, 7-5, in the finals.

“It’s a really good feeling to know that we did our best,” Owen said in a telephone interview shortly following the match. “It was especially nice to win it with Ken because we’re really good friends and this was the last match of our high school careers.”

It was the second straight doubles title for Owen, who teamed up with Sam Schmoker to claim the crown a year ago.

Owen said that he and Sample made a solid team, because Sample has a strong game at the net, while Owen holds down the fort in the backcourt.

“Ken is tall and has long arms, so he can cover a lot of area at the net,” Owen said. “I’m better with my groundstrokes in the backcourt.”

Owen also lauded their championship match opponents for a strong effort.

“They’ve only been together for a week and they made a very good team,” he said. “They’re juniors, so they’re really going to be tough to beat next year.”

West Valley coach Debbie Miller was ecstatic with the performance of her doubles duo.

“They’re my co-captains and they’ve had an amazing season,” Miller said. “They wanted to go out in style and they certainly did a great job of doing that.”

Owen and Sample began the day by posting a 6-2, 6-4 victory over the No. 1 seed from East Anchorage — Ben Larson and Ethan Neslund.

“That match went really, really well,” Owen said. “We were worried because we were playing the No. 1 seed. We knew it was going to be a tough match and Ken really stepped up his game.”

The victory boosted West Valley into a three-way tie for fourth place in the overall team standings. The Wolfpack, East Anchorage and Service all finished with 23 points.

West Anchorage won the state title with 35 points, followed by South Anchorage with 28 and Juneau-Douglas with 26.

Lathrop placed seventh with 20 points. Monroe Catholic was 12th with nine points, followed by Hutchison with eighth. North Pole was 15th with two points and Eielson rounded out the field with 0.

Contact the News-Miner sports department at 459-7581.