Seemingly, there was nothing like the feeling of the Class 5A doubles state championship Topeka West’s Ian and Miles Cusick captured last spring.
 
Not only was the title the first for the twin brothers, but it came on their home courts at Topeka’s Kossover Tennis Center.
 
“That one was amazing,” Miles said of the 2022 title, which capped a 37-4 season for the Cusicks.
 
As satisfying as the breakthrough title was a year ago, neither Miles nor Ian had the slightest hesitation in proclaiming their second state championship – secured Saturday in Arkansas City – the ultimate high. Not only did the Cusicks successfully defend their 5A crown, beating the hometown favorites of Oakley and Dawson O’Donnell 6-3, 6-4 in the championship match, but their victory also clinched the first team state championship in boys’ program history.
 
Topeka West, which got placings from all four of its state entries, finished with 34 points to easily top runner-up Blue Valley Southwest’s total of 28 points.
 
“By far, this one feels better,” Ian Cusick said. “We had the whole team here and we got the team title as well. This is just a dream come true. It’s what we’ve been working for all four years. It was super-important to us.”
 
Miles 100% agreed.
 
“It’s definitely more special,” Miles said. “Winning it with my teammates, my best friends over the years. It’s just an amazing experience. We’re just ecstatic that we had this opportunity and had amazing people around us to help us succeed.
 
“It’s an amazing feeling to be able to write our names in the history books. That’s not necessarily what we were focusing on, but it’s certainly a great part of it.”
 

 
Last year’s road to a state title was one of almost complete redemption for the Cusicks. A semifinal win over Salina Central’s Connor and Collin Phelps avenged two regular-season losses to the Mustang duo. The championship match win over Maize South’s Grayson Wright and Mitchell Krumm avenged another of their four losses.
 
In order to successfully defend their state title this spring, the Cusicks knew they likely were going to somewhat duplicate that effort. Namely, they were going to have to solve their year-long nemeses -- Arkansas City’s O’Donnell brothers, who had handed them three of their four regular-season losses this year.
 
And once the Cusicks topped Newton’s Otis Musser and Justin Franz 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 in their semifinal and the O’Donnells dispatched Blue Valley Southwest’s Vishal Rajkumar and Saket Jagannath 6-3, 6-3 in their semifinal, the rematch materialized and the stage was set.
 
“Really, it was going into it with the right mentality,” Miles said. “We knew that they are a good team, a really good team who would be very, very tough to beat. But we also know we’re a good team too. And when we’re playing at our best, we can beat a lot of people.”
 
“We knew we had a chance to win it if we didn’t play nervously and played with everything we had,” Ian said. “I don’t think we were even thinking about our three losses to them. That wasn’t a factor.”
 

 
Each of the first three meetings with between the Cusicks and O’Donnells all came in pro-set matches with the Bulldog brothers taking identical 8-6 victories each time. Miles said he, Ian and Charger coach Kurt Davids studied those matches and gathered data for a potential state rematch.
 
With a game-plan in place, Davids was eager to see how Saturday’s championship match played out.
 
“We absolutely looked forward to playing them with full-length scoring and two out of three if we needed it,” Davids said. “The times we’ve played them, it’s come down to them getting one more break than we got. That’s what we worked on, what we needed to do to break them and what we needed to do to hold our own serve.”
 
The Cusicks came up with the first service break of the title matching, breaking Oakley’s serve to take a 3-1 lead. When Miles held his serve to put the Cusicks up 4-1, Ian said, “it almost felt like the first set was over with because of how much energy we had.”
 
It pretty much was. With West’s entire team courtside boisterously cheering the Cusicks on, the Charger duo held serve the rest of the set for the 6-3 victory.
 
Whatever momentum the Cusicks had, however, quickly disappeared. With their teammates trickling off to other courts to complete their state tournaments and the O’Donnells feeding off a growing home crowd, the Bulldogs charged back.
 

 
They broke Miles serve early in the second set and held their own to jump out to a quick 3-0 lead. Throughout the match, nearly every point on either side was celebrated vigorously and loudly, both teams knowing the importance of each of them.
 
But with their backs against the wall in the second set, the Cusicks regrouped. After Ian held serve to get them on the board, they broke both Dawson’s and Oakley’s serve to win four straight games and take a 4-3 lead.
 
The teams traded service breaks to make it 5-3 before Miles held serve to close out the win.
 
“It seemed like they were losing energy and that if we just stayed in the match and put balls in play, we could get it done,” Ian said. “We did the best job we’ve done against them putting balls in play and getting to where we needed to be.”
 
The victory completed Redemption Tour II and capped a 38-4 season.
 
“We just peaked at the right time heading into state and it ended up in our favor,” Miles said. “The energy that we had today, early in the season it was missing. The atmosphere really helped us out a lot just knowing this was our last high school match. There was a lot on the table, but I think we’re both amazing under pressure so we took care of business.
 
“They’re an amazing team and I can’t say enough good things about them. It was an amazing match.”

The O'Donnells finished the season with a 33-2 record.

"They just played better," said Dawson O'Donnell, who dealt with severe cramps just ahead of the title match, but battled through team to play inspired tennis. "I was hurting out there, but no excuses. It was a great season, just a bad finish."

Immediately after the final point, Miles sought out Ian and embraced him with a long hug – the last go for the brothers who will go off to separate colleges next year; Miles to Kansas State and Ian to the University of Kansas. The emotion overcame Miles in particular, who sat down on a bench, his face buried in his hands, letting it all out.
 
“All the adrenaline, everything, it just hit,” Miles said. “You see videos of (Rafael) Nadal when he was younger, crying after I think one Wimbledon semifinal. I’m not comparing myself to Nadal by any means, but it’s just when all those emotions hit you, you’re focused on something so hard and then when it happens, it’s relief, happiness, a little sadness. Just a lot of emotions at the same time.”
 

 
A huge part of those emotions had to do with leading West and Davids to the program’s first boys’ team state championship. West had previously won girls’ state titles in 1985, 1987 and 1994 under former coach Corey Wilson, but never had hung a banner for the boys.
 
But after losing only one player off last year’s state runner-up team, Davids knew this year’s team had a chance to end that drought.
 
“The guys that were back bought in and worked their tails off,” Davids said. “All winter, all fall, a bunch over the summer.”
 
West qualified its entire team for state this year with junior Caden McGee and Caleb Weybrew joining the Cusicks in the doubles draw and senior Carter Cool and junior James Maag in the singles draw.
 
West sent immediate notice as each Charger entry won their first match on Friday. Though Maag and McGee and Weybrew fell in the second round, Cool advanced to the quarterfinals with a 6-2, 6-1 win over St. James Academy’s Cullen Knipp while the Cusicks rolled into the quarterfinals as well. While the Cusicks continued their march to the title, Cool fell 6-0, 6-2 in the quarters to Andover’s Paul Jittawait.
 
As important as the work on the front side of the bracket was, so too was the showing in the consolation bracket. Maag bounced back from his second-round loss to Jittawait to win two straight matches to secure a state medal. McGee and Weybrew did the same, in the process knocking out the Blue Valley Southwest team of Nicholas Hohman and Jedrick Wilson with a 9-1 win that was huge in the team race.
 
“The Day One plan was to get everybody playing on Day Two and it went exactly how we had penciled it out and mapped it through,” Davids said. “This morning we could have clinched with four wins in the first round. It didn’t happen, but we managed to still get it done. We focused a lot all season about ending the day strong and we did.”
 
Though none of the Charger consolation players could reach the finals, each ended their state tournaments with wins. Cool topped Maize South’s Evan Goates 9-7 to finish seventh in singles. McGee and Weybrew beat St. Thomas Aquinas’ Maverick Farrar and Patrick Lacy 9-3 to take ninth in doubles and James Maag beat St. James’ Eli Donaldson 9-0 to take 11^th in singles.
 
“It’s very satisfying,” said Davids, who is in his 30^th year as Charger coach. “We’ve been close and had some individual championships, quite a few of them. Some places here and there. For it to come together and win the first, it’s pretty nice.”
 

 
Southwest finished runner-up with 28 points, led by a fourth from the doubles team of Rajkumar and Jagannath, who fell 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 to Newton’s Musser and Franz in the third-place match. Maize and Aquinas tied for third with 21 points.
 
Maize South’s Mitchell Krumm and Hudson Grizzell took fifth with a 9-7 win over Andover Central’s Blake Wilson and Cameron Strickland, while Andover Central’s Isaac Huber and Trevor Sagehorn topped Maize’s Hayden Herrera and Hector Baleriola-Lopez 9-2 for seventh. Arkansas City’s Jacob Arnett and Aidan Brantley took 11^th and De Soto’s Cael Province and Colton Rhoads were 12^th.