Cooper Lehman and Braylen Garcia put 'em down deep.

The Hempfield doubles team captured the PIAA Class 3A championship with a 2-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 victory over Dallastown's Jacob Horn and Hayden Koons on May 24 at Hershey Racquet Club.

Cooper knew the first thing he needed to do after receiving his gold medal was call his biggest fan: his grandmother Josie Lehman.

Josie was unable to attend the match, and it was not livestreamed. It took a couple minutes for Cooper to explain to Josie how to answer a FaceTime call, but they eventually connected.

"I showed her my medal, and she was in awe," Cooper recalled. "My grandma is my No. 1 supporter. Before a match, she tells me to 'put 'em down,' and before facing a tough opponent, she says to 'put 'em down deep.' She told me to 'tell Braylen I love him.' It was really cool."

During the second set, it seemed like Cooper's post-match talk with his grandma was going to have a far less-celebratory tone. Cooper, a senior, and Braylen, a freshman, dropped the first set and fell behind in the second against the Dallastown duo.

"We had no energy at all," Braylen said. "We weren't playing our greatest. We just stuck with it all the way. Just played for every point. We didn't fold under the pressure, and we rose to the occasion."

Dallastown had a match point before the Black Knights tandem rallied. Cooper and Braylen are friends with the members of the Dallastown team and had defeated them in the district final. "They were playing really well, and it threw us off," Cooper said. "We were getting frustrated. I was just trying to stay composed and keep myself calm so that would reflect on Braylen."

Although in his first season of high school tennis, Braylen's experience belies his age. "I feel like I've always been kind of calm," he said. "I play in a lot of tournaments. It gives me experience with that kind of stuff."

Hempfield had not broken Jacob's serve in the district title contest or up until the point the Dallastown player was serving for the match. Cooper conceded he had very little hope left while facing match point, so he decided to take a simple approach. "I just started playing and tried not to think about losing or winning. I was just being in the moment."

Cooper and Braylen wound up taking the second set in a tiebreaker and then rolled in the third set. "We started playing a lot better," Braylen said. "My serve was getting better. Our volleys were a lot better. We were placing everything where we wanted."

Hempfield claimed the title when a Dallastown shot sailed long. "It felt like all my hard work paid off from training hard the past few months," Braylen said. "It felt awesome."

Cooper stated, "I didn't believe it. We made that comeback and won the ultimate prize. It's an unreal feeling, and it keeps getting better and better."

Cooper and Braylen, who also claimed the league title, are the second Hempfield boys' doubles team to capture a state championship. The Fox twins, Bryan and Aaron, earned gold as sophomores in 1996. "It's extremely rare to be fortunate enough to coach anybody that wins a state title," said Mindi Bell, who has coached the Black Knights' boys' team since 2013 and the girls' team since fall 2016. "They worked so hard in the offseason. To see that pay off for them was really exciting."

It was a fitting end to Cooper's stellar career. Cooper also claimed league and district singles titles in his first three seasons, and he placed fourth in the state as a sophomore and third as a junior.

Cooper had to decide whether to play singles or doubles during the postseason tournaments. He enjoys playing doubles. "You get to fight together, struggle together, and celebrate together," he said. Cooper understands he will be playing a lot of doubles in college, and he was impressed with Braylen and his volleying ability.

"Cooper has had a lot of good partners in the past, but I think he was excited to play with Braylen because he knew they had a good shot to do well," said Bell, who guided the Black Knights to a 14-0 regular season record and a Section I championship. "I don't know that anybody was thinking about a state title early in the season, but we knew that they had the potential to do extremely well as a doubles team."

Cooper will play tennis at University of Mary Washington, an NCAA Division III school in Fredericksburg, Va., where he will study business and entrepreneurship.

Braylen, who trains at RCW Athletic Club (formerly known as Racquet Club West) during the offseason, is expected to play No. 1 singles for the Black Knights next spring, Bell said. He has big aspirations. "I definitely want to play D-I (NCAA Division I), go to a really good D-I school on a scholarship and go from there."