#7 EDEN PRAIRIE 4, #5 HIGHLAND PARK 3
#7 Eden Prairie topped visiting #5 Highland Park 4-3 with playoff implications at stake. (this is one reason why the finals seeds don’t come out until Wednesday morning). The Eagles grabbed all four singles while the Scots ruled on the doubles side. The focus point of the entire gym came down to third singles with the match tied at three apiece. EP’s Wei Wei Chen outlasted Harper Franz in an extremely tight three set match. All sets were decided by three points or less with Chen taking the odd sets. It got so raucous that the crowd had to be reminded it was only proper to cheer when your favorite made a winner, not when the opponent made an error.
That was not the only three set contest today. There were three and all followed the same first-third win pattern. EP’s Vivian Nguyen also went three with Houahna Yang at second singles. HP’s third doubles pair of Natalia Gercheva and Lar Say Paw also won in three sets. There were six three-point sets with both sides splitting at three wins each. One of those sets went to extra points with the HP first doubles pair of Alice Verbrugge and Violet Solem Valentine squeaking out a 22-20 win in the first set.
Now the state seeds become a bit more complicated with this Eagle victory.
SINGLES
1 Maya Varikuti, EP def Nica Johnson 21-14, 21-17
2 Vivian Nguyen, EP def Houahna Yang 21-18, 18-21, 21-15
3 Wei Wei Chen, EP def Harper Franz 21-19, 19-21, 21-18
4 Aashna Dhriti, EP def Birtukuan Aregawi 21-14, 21-14
DOUBLES
1 Alice Verbrugge / Violet Solem Valentine, HP def Shreya Juneja / Aish Balakrishna 22-20, 21-14
2 Abby Putz / Edi Damiyo, HP def Alexa Bernardy / Ashten Bernardy 21-15, 21-11
3 Natalia Gercheva / Lar Say Paw, HP def Akshaya Balamurali / Thanvi Chada 21-17, 17-21, 21-12
BY THE NUMBERS
SINGLES
Matches: Eden Prairie 4-0 1.000
Games: Eden Prairie 8-2 .800
points: Eden Prairie 205-171 .545
Set 1 points: Eden Prairie 84-65 .564
Set 2 points: Eden Prairie 79-73 .520
Set 3 points: Eden Prairie 42-33 .560
decided by 10+: none
decided by 3-: Eden Prairie 3-2 .600
margin: Eden Prairie 3.400
DOUBLES
Matches: Highland Park 3-0 1.000
Games: Highland Park 6-1 .857
points: Highland Park 144-110 .567
Set 1 points: Highland Park 64-52 .552
Set 2 points: Highland Park 59-46 .562
Set 3 points: Highland Park 21-12 .636
decided by 10+: Highland Park 1-0 1.000
decided by 3-: Highland Park 1-0 1.000
margin: Highland Park 4.857
FIRST SINGLES
#15 Maya VARIKUTI 2, #6 Nica JOHNSON 0 (reported 21-14, 21-17, recorded 21-13, 21-17)
Eden Prairie’s Maya Varikuti made her debut in the rankings at #15 on Sunday and celebrated by topping #6 Nica Johnson in a sweep. As usual, the player with the better side out game prevailed with Varikuti up 300 over Johnson in that department. With Varikuti slamming on the door on Johnson’s service a dozen times it was harder for the Scot to score or build momentum. Varikuti scored on five of her six services in the first set which set the trajectory for the day. One area that Johnson did better was in winners 17-16. The winner total for Johnson, in percentage terms, was .567; for Varikuti only .381. Varikuti took advantage of 26 hitting errors in her victory. We can boil the issue down to the two stroke points. Nine of Johnson’s winners came on the two strokes, but so did nine errors. Varikuti had five two stroke winners, and four two stroke errors. Looking back on the Johnson two stroke winners, six came via smashes indicating the bird was probably in the sweet spot. Johnson had nine smashes on the day. Six of her two stroke errors were nets with soft drive attempts failing to clear the dividing line.
Varikuti started the match with three straight points for the first run and her first two points came on drops (three of her first four points came on drops). She notched her second run on her second service (6-1). Johnson bounced right back with her first run and another on her fourth service to make it 8-7. A missed serve then gave Varikuti the longest run of the match with five more points in addition to the missed serve, the last four on hitting errors. Johnson closed the gap once more with her third and final run of the set 14-11. But Johnson was unable to stop Varikuti on her service. The Eagle ran off five more points to hold a commanding 19-11 lead.
The second set didn’t see the amount of runs that the first set held. In fact, Johnson had two before Varikuti and one. But again, Varikuti was able to squeeze points on four of her first five services and that helped propel her into the lead at 8-5. Johnson’s first run tied it at eight. Her second run put her in the lead 13-12 for the first time in either set. A series of side outs had her still up 15-14. A missed serve torpedoed that momentum. A nine-stroke clear to the left corner but Varikuti back in front 16-15. Johnson immediately tied it with her pattened two stroke smash. Then Varikuti struck her only run, but it was a substantial four pointer, and it was late in the game. That put her on the cusp at 20-16. The first two points in that run came on deep clears, the next was a two-stroke soft drive into the net. Varikuti took a page from Johnson and ended the match on a two stroke smash.
Needless to say, the singles in state are going to be extremely interesting.
| Category | VARIKUTI | JOHNSON |
| Side out | 12/19-.632 | 6/18-.333 |
| Longest side out string | 4 | 4 |
| 3+ Runs | 5 | 5 |
| Longest point string | 6 | 4 |
| SERVING | ||
| First serve | 2 | 1 |
| First point | 1, 2 | |
| Service points | 24 | 11 |
| Serving % | 37/40-.925 | 27/31-.871 |
| Point generated off serve | .571 | .367 |
| POINTS | 42 | 30 |
| Points after 11 | 20 | 14 |
| Points after own errors | 9 | 10 |
| Winners after own errors | 5 | 6 |
| STROKES | 135 | 90 |
| Strokes per point | 3.214 | 3.000 |
| 5+ rallies (%) | 7 | 5 |
| 2- rallies (%) | 18 | 18 |
| WINNERS | 16 | 17 |
| Aces | 0 | 2 |
| Blocks | 0 | 0 |
| Clears | 3 | 1 |
| Drives | 4 | 2 |
| Drops | 5 | 1 |
| Soft drives | 0 | 2 |
| Smashes | 4 | 9 |
| Even Stroke Winners | 10 | 12 |
| 2nd Stroke Winners | 5 | 9 |
| Odd Stroke Winners | 6 | 5 |
| ERRORS | 13 | 26 |
| Deep | 0 | 6 |
| Net | 7 | 10 |
| Wide | 3 | 6 |
| Serve | 3 | 4 |
| Even stroke errors | 11 | 14 |
| 2nd stroke errors | 6 | 7 |
| Odd stroke errors | 2 | 12 |
| WINNER LOCATION | ||
| Left | 7 | 9 |
| Right | 9 | 8 |
| Largest Lead | 8, 4 | 0, 1 |
| W:E Ratio | 1.231 | 0.654 |
| Margin | 6.000 | |
| Set Point % | 2/4-.500 | |
| Time | 14:55 |