By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
 
All William & Mary coach Jeff Kader asked from his players was to leave everything on the courts. No one can say they didn't.
 
With plenty of drama dominating the weekend, the Tribe came agonizingly close to winning the CAA Men's Tennis Championships. W&M won the final three singles matches to stun Elon 4-3 in Saturday's semifinals but ran out of magic in Sunday's title round with a 4-3 loss to UNCW.
 
"The way that they laid it out there the entire weekend, I can't ask any more than that," Kader said. "That's what we've been asking for the entire year, and that's what they've been delivering the entire year. Great heart and fight all the way around. It just didn't quite go our way."
 
Compared to what would follow, Thursday's quarterfinal win over Charleston was uneventful. The Tribe not only won 4-0, it didn't lose a set in singles or doubles.
 
Then came Elon, which had defeated W&M 5-2 in March. The Tribe won the doubles point, but the Phoenix took the first three singles matches for a 3-1 lead. Elon needed one more win to clinch, and three singles matches had gone to a third set.
 
W&M tied it with wins by Chen Ruo (1-6, 6-3, 6-3) at No. 6 and Lev Kazakov (6-3, 5-7, 6-1) at No. 2. All eyes turned to court four, where Tribe senior Finbar Talcott and the Phoenix's Camilo Ponce were 6-6 in the third set and went to a tiebreaker.
 
"I had been telling the team that every single person should be expecting it to come down to your court and for it to be 6-all in the third set," Kader said. "Sure enough, that's what happened on Saturday."
 
Talcott pulled it out 7-4 to send his team to Saturday's final. His teammates were elated but not surprised. As a freshman, Talcott clinched 4-3 wins over Elon (also vs. Ponce) and South Carolina in three sets at No. 5.
 
"Fin has nerves of steel," Kader said. "The team was saying afterwards that there wasn't really any doubt that if coming down to the last match and Fin was out there, he wouldn't let up.
 
"And he didn't. He delivered again."
 
Against No. 1 seed UNCW in Sunday's championship, William & Mary lost the doubles point after its No. 3 team led 40-15 at 5-5. With the first three singles matches decided, the Tribe trailed 3-1 and had no margin for error.
 
Then came some more magic. After losing their first sets, Sebastian Quiros at No. 5 and Kazakov at No. 2 rallied for three-set wins to even the score 3-3. But on court one, W&M's Brenden Volk had lost the first set and was down 3-0 to Elon's Bruno Caula in the second.
 
Volk came back with breaks in the fourth and 10th games to send it to a tiebreaker, which he won 7-4. But no doubt spent by this point, Volk lost the third set 6-3.
 
"He left it all out there," Kader said. "He made him earn in."
 
"It was a very good college tennis match all the way around. Nerves never came into play. It came down to tennis, and both sides performed."