Doug Subosits and Andrew Nixon have played tennis most of their lives.

It's just that they did it almost exclusively as singles players. And on the rare occasions they did play doubles, it was hardly ever with each other.

That all changed when the Peters Township High School seniors figured out they had a chance of winning a PIAA championship.

"They were put together for section doubles, so they played three matches there and then they played four matches at WPIALs," Indians coach Brandt Bowman said. "But that's the case with most of the teams, though, they're singles players pairing up. There's not a lot of practice time. Andrew and Doug spent the last two weeks between WPIALs and states practicing a lot, putting in work on things, and they got a lot better. It really paid off."

Nixon and Subosits, Peters Township's top two singles players, became PIAA champions when they won the PIAA Class AAA doubles championship last weekend at the Hershey Racquet Club.

The duo won all four of its matches in Hershey, culminating with a 6-3, 6-3, victory against Fernando Tovia and Jake Vonderploeg and Central Bucks South in the title match Saturday.

"We were kind of thrown together and hadn't played a lot [of doubles]," Subosits said. "Even in the section and WPIAL tournaments, we were just two singles players out there that happened to be playing doubles. But then when we got to the state tournament, we practiced together and formed a true doubles team. It wasn't just two singles players playing together anymore."

The singles resumes for both Subosits and Nixon are impressive. Each player qualified for the WPIAL singles tournament -- after meeting in the Section 5-AAA championship match -- with Nixon advancing to the quarterfinals and Subosits taking third place.

In addition, each has an accomplished USTA tournament career. Nixon is ranked No. 27 and Subosits No. 31 among boys' ages 18 and under in the USTA's Middle States Region covering Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and parts of West Virginia.

Nixon will play tennis at the University of Dayton next season and Subosits will attend Penn State, where he figures to try and make the tennis team as a walk-on.

Nixon and Subosits played together briefly as freshmen, reaching the section doubles semifinals. But they didn't play together again until their run this spring in winning the Section 5-AAA title last month and placing second in the WPIAL tournament May 1-2.

The Peters Township pair lost in the WPIAL title match to Chris Mengel and Josh Ferraccio of Shady Side Academy but fared better than those two in Hershey. Mengel and Ferraccio lost to Tovia and Vonderploeg in the semifinals before rebounding to take third place.

"I don't want to say [Nixon and Subosits taking gold] was totally unexpected, because I knew they had a shot if they played well,"

Bowman said. "But by no means were they a favorite going in. So it was pretty exciting, a pretty good result.

"I thought it was special for those guys as seniors."

The gold medal was an upgrade to the hardware Subosits earned last season in Hershey. He paired with then-senior Pat Kennedy to take the bronze medal at the PIAA tournament after winning the WPIAL doubles title.

"It was good to improve that much," Subosits said.

Nixon, who did not play high school tennis last season, has a younger brother, Chris, who is also on the Peters Township team. Chris Nixon, a sophomore, was on the doubles team along with Jesse Scheirer that Andrew Nixon and Subsoits beat in the section championship match.

Subosits' older sister, Lauren, earned a WPIAL doubles medal before she graduated in 2006.

Also making PG South news in Hershey was Upper St. Clair junior Jay Jones, who advanced to the Class AAA singles semifinals before losing and then dropping the consolation match to Pine-Richland's Casey Watt.

Jones, who also lost to Watt in this season's WPIAL championship singles match, won a gold medal at Hershey last season by teaming with the now-graduated Chris Foster in doubles.

Mt. Lebanon resident Daniel "D.J." Goldblum, a freshman at Winchester Thurston High, was a Class AA singles semifinalist. He ultimately placed fourth.