The 2024 Badminton season wrapped up with a pair of #1 seeds hanging on to victory. In singles, it was Phlower Power. Highland Park’s senior Phlower Vang beat #2 seed Kimberly Tobar in three sets 21-19, 18-21, 21-13. In so doing Highland Park becomes the first school to have three straight singles titles held by three different players. HaNeul Jeong McDonell started the trend in 2022. Phlower’s sister Sunshine Vang won last year. Overall, this is the fourth title for the Scots at singles. Vang’s path to victory included wins over Mollie Anderson of Roosevelt 21-7, 21-7; Wah Chri Paw of Humboldt 21-15, 21-15; Ariel Fang of Washington 21-7, 21-13 and Hazel Dang of Edina 21-16, 21-11. Vang finishes the season at 31-1. Her only loss was to Tobar during the conference season.

On the doubles side Ivy Peterson and Sanna Coma flipped last year’s second place finish for first. They toppled #2 seed Dao Sangwang and Goldy Moua of St. Paul Johnson for the second straight day. Yesterday it took three sets in the team championship. In the title match today, it was two. In so doing Peterson & Coma earned the first gold medal in doubles for any Hornet. They also were the first suburban pair to win a state doubles title since 2008 when Becca Wade and Larysa Euteneur earned the top honors. Peterson and Coma won five matches today starting with Washburn’s 1 in the opening round in a sweep 21-3, 21-5. Next came the Harding 2 pair of Isabelle Guiterrez and Nay Gay 21-15, 21-18. The biggest struggle for them and for a while it seemed an upset was in the works, as Bety Shiferaw and Edi Daimyo of Highland Park gave the Edina pair fits. The Scots took the first set 21-15. Edina kept their season going taking the next two 21-15, 21-18. Next up was North St. Paul duo of Jolena Young and Claire Yang in the semis and Edina won 21-15, 21-12. This was the first time NSP was on the medal list. Peterson & Coma finishes the 2024 campaign with a 26-1 mark.

I will be digesting the tape of the title games over the course of the next few days. I will be putting out the match-by-match scores tomorrow. Then probably the number crunching stats. Later I will look in depth at the bird placement and the differences between players over the course of the games I taped. Even in singles I can see things happening that I believe are Important. Doubles video is indispensable.