#1 Edina’s win streak stays alive with two more wins on Friday including a narrow 4-3 victory over #2 Harding in the opener of the Edina Triangular. The Hornets winning streak has now reached 56 matches. The win over the Knights is the third time this year the Hornets have won 4-3 over St. Paul opponents. Edina still have a ways to go to get to Johnson’s record of 75 set from 2016 to 2019.

GAME 1: EDINA 4, HARDING 3

Edina won today despite missing second singles (and sometimes first singles) Aarushi Bhatnagar who had prior commitments. The Hornets split the singles taking the odds against the Knights and then taking the top two doubles for their four set win. There were three three set matches with Harding winning two of them. Both odd doubles went three sets and both had to rally after falling in the first.

First singles was a linchpin win for the Hornets. #1 ranked Evelyn Ge topped #2 ranked Gao Zhia Vue by the same 21-16 scores. Ge opened the first set in the hole 3-0. She inched in front taking the lead at 12-9 after her first run of five on her seventh serve (of 13 in set one). At that point the game morphed into a side out contest as both players struggled to score on serve. Vue made it 18-16, but a two stroke drop off the short serve gave Ge the bird and she did not let go scoring two more winners (her last seven points were winners) capped by a soft drive to the left. Both players had strong side out games in the first  set. Ge had 13 winners to Vue’s 11.

Ge had two runs under her belt early in the second set building a 9-3 lead after her third service. The scoring relied more on errors in the second. Of the first nine Ge points, six were on Vue errors. The back breaker came when Ge ran off six straight to go up 18-7 during her sixth service. That eleven point hole was steep to climb out of for Vue. But she started connecting on her serve and had her first run on her seventh service and then tacked on another run of four to make it 20-16. A four stroke block by Ge ended that match.

Overall Ge had 22 service points across both sets, Vue had 12. Winners had a couple of signatures for each player: Ge had an 8-1 advantage on net drops; Vue was 9-0 on clears. Vue did have a 4-1 lead on smashes, but for the most part neither player presented opportunities for the other.  It was errors that foiled Vue’s plans. She had 22 for this match; Ge had 10.

GAME 2: HARDING 5, MATH & SCIENCE 2

The Knights turned it around in the second match against Math & Science. The Dragons victories came at third singles and first doubles. Only one match went to three sets and that was won by the third doubles pair of Chiasi Chang and Taylor Lee, their second three set win of the day. Also winning for the second time today was second singles Paige Xiong, fourth singles Ivory Xiong. Gao Zhia Vue took down Emily Balandin in two sets. I got to the first set with Vue ahead 8-3. When I charted that first set Vue held Balandin scoreless on six of eight services. The second set saw Balandin putting back to back runs together to go up 9-6 after fifth service. At the eleven point mark break the Dragon still led 11-9. Vue turned the game her direction with a six point run on her eighth service. Balandin struggled with four straight hitting error points on the second serve. That put Vue up 15-11. Vue finished the match with her second run of three. Vue won the winners in this set 11-6. The first winner for Vue in the second set came on the first point (a five stroke drive). Balandin’s first winner came on her sixth points (an ace).

GAME 3: EDINA 6, MATH & SCIENCE 1

The Hornets closed out the day with a 6-1 win over the Dragons. The win for the maroon and gray? First singles Emily Balandin knocked off #1 ranked Evelyn Ge. The key point in this match came in the first set on Balandin’s second service. Four straight times Balandin served up a deep ace, painting the corners or lines with surgical precision. All four times Ge did not make a play for the bird thinking it was going to go deep. Instead it found the court and propelled Balandin’s hopes. Besides those aces, Ge missed two serves meaning Balandin won the one stroke battle (either aces scored or missed serves) 8-3. In a 21-16 game, that is 38% of all points, and the margin was exactly five. Ge rebounded with a second set win including three runs. The first put her in front 6-4 after her fourth service. The final run was four points at the finish with a ten stroke smash to start things off in getting the bird back. That set up the rubber set. The third set skewed to a side out fest. Ge had 15 services, with Balandin 14. Both players sided out 11 times. Scoring points off serve went to Balandin 6-5, not a big advantage. So where was the advantage? Balandin won winners 12-9. Runs also pointed to Balandin with two including a four point run turning a 9 all tie to a 13-9 advantage. How did it start? A missed short serve. When Balandin went up 17-15, the rest of the set was trading side outs.

There were two other matches that went to three sets: fourth singles and third doubles. Both were sandwich wins (winning first and third sets). Third doubles between Edina’s Shauryaa / Sydney, and M&S Grisma / Shreya were all decided by two points with the last two sets going extra points.

So what does this all mean? Edina is still undefeated and will remain the #1 ranked team. All three number one singles players split on the day. That means the race to be the #1 seed in the tournament now has a log jam of contestants. Most players have at least one loss, many more have two losses on the yar. Things won’t be clarified until the St. Paul City Conference tournament (as it usually is). The winner there will probably be slotted into the number one spot. There were more than these three matches today that jumbled the race for that spot. All throughout the week players moved up and then retreated. The field is wide, wide, wide open.