Today the focus was on four sites as the state tournament field was winnowed from sixteen down to a final four. I spent the day at #4 seed Como Park and saw two sweeps to open the action with #5 Highland Park stopping Kennedy and the host Cougars finishing off Roosevelt.
The drama came in the quarterfinal nailbiter between the two St. Paul rivals. Early in March the Cougars celebrated a 4-3 win. April 4 it was the Scots turn to party with a 6-1 triumph.
Today Como led 3-1 with three matches out: first singles, fourth singles and second doubles. All were headed to three sets. Como won the first set at fourth singles; HP took the first at first singles and second doubles before stumbling in set two. With their backs to the wall the Scots prevailed in all three. First done was the Scot pair of Alice Verbrugge and Violet Solem Valentine with and exclamation point victory 21-5. Next in the bank was Nica Johnson’s win at fourth singles 21-10. That left all eyes on first singles where #1 state seed and St. Paul conference champ Phlower Vang was locked in a struggle with state #4 seed Xee Lee. Lee finished fourth last week in St. Paul’s city meet, but was giving Vang a battle. Neither player could gain separation from each other. Vang’s biggest lead came early at 5-2 and 7-4. Lee had a four point burst after the switching of sides to lead 17-15 and later 18-16. But Vang and HP was not to be denied. A six stroke smash put the bird back in Vang’s possession. She would not relinquish it and finished with the next four points capped by the last two going as seven and three stroke smashes. The Scots had punched their way to the final four at Edina in dramatic fashion.
Como’s win streak stopped at nine. HP now has four wins in a row and will be looking to get number five as the #5 seed against the Hornets.
you would see the numbers crunched here. That will have to wait until tomorrow after I digest the ink.
now digested. A few other points:
Both players had strong side out games. Neither conceded much off of serve. Winners were dominated by Vang 36-22 with smashes the favorite at 14. It is interesting to note when those smashes occurred however…eight came right away in the first set, then plummeted to one solitary smash in the second, before rebounding back to five in the final. But when they came in the final was illuminating…points 15, 16, 17, 20 and 21. Translation Vang only had one smash the entire second set up to point 14 in the third set.
Vang also led in errors with nets getting in the way 18 times, one less than the entire Lee error total. The issue with Vang was the soft drive didn’t have enough juice many times. There were an occasional smash that failed to get across as well, but mainly the soft drive that ran out of gas.
For Lee her error totals went from four and four in the first two sets to eleven in the final frame. Nine of her hitting errors came in that critical set.
| Category | VANG | LEE |
| Side out | 25/33-.756 | 23/34-.676 |
| Longest side out string | 14 | 4 |
| 3+ Runs | 7 | 5 |
| Longest point string | 6 | 7 |
| SERVING | ||
| First serve | 1, 2 | 3 |
| First point | 1 | 2, 3 |
| Service points | 23 | 19 |
| Serving % | 51/55-.927 | 50/51-.980 |
| Point generated off serve | .418 | .373 |
| POINTS | 55 | 51 |
| Points after 11 | 24 | 25 |
| Points after own errors | 18 | 13 |
| Winners after own errors | 13 | 3 |
| STROKES | 246 | 177 |
| Strokes per point | 4.473 | 3.471 |
| 5+ rallies (%) | 22 | 14 |
| 2- rallies (%) | 16 | 19 |
| WINNERS | 36 | 22 |
| Aces | 0 | 2 |
| Blocks | 0 | 0 |
| Clears | 7 | 8 |
| Drives | 0 | 1 |
| Drops | 6 | 0 |
| Soft drives | 9 | 2 |
| Smashes | 14 | 9 |
| Even Stroke Winners | 22 | 12 |
| 2nd Stroke Winners | 11 | 6 |
| Odd Stroke Winners | 14 | 10 |
| ERRORS | 29 | 19 |
| Deep | 1 | 1 |
| Net | 18 | 14 |
| Wide | 6 | 3 |
| Serve | 4 | 1 |
| Even stroke errors | 17 | 7 |
| 2nd stroke errors | 7 | 4 |
| Odd stroke errors | 12 | 12 |
| WINNER LOCATION | ||
| Left | 8 | 10 |
| Right | 28 | 12 |
| Largest Lead | 9, 0, 3 | 0, 8, 2 |
| W:E Ratio | 1.241 | 1.158 |
| Margin | 1.333 | |
| Set Point % | 2/2-1.000 | 1/1-1.000 |
| Time | 29.02 |
Phlower VANG 2, Xee LEE 1 (21-12, 13-21, 21-18)