JOHNSON TAKES SINGLES AND DOUBLES TITLES
A pair of twos came up aces. The Governors came into the tournament seeded second in both singles and doubles and ended up first beating a pair of nemesis in the process.
The third time proved to be a charm for Gaonou Vang and Angelina Thao at doubles. They faced Edina’s Daisy Hennington-Hoff & Ella Burke twice before, as recently as yesterday, and lost both contests in three sets. The first meeting’s margin was 2.33. The average margin in the state finals was 2.67. Today the Govs put the hammer down racing out to substantial leads in both sets over the undefeated Hornets and, in effect, sailed to victory. It wasn’t close 21-11, 21-8. That margin? A no doubt 11.5.
DH-H & EB ended up 23-1.
GV & AT wraps up the year 20-2. Vang & Thao are the ninth Governor pair to win state.
On the singles side Amanda Her won the fifth meeting and therefore the season series with Harding’s Gao Zhia Vue. Vue won the first meeting right off the bat in March at Harding. Her returned the favor in an early April meeting at Johnson. The pendulum swung back to Vue at the St. Paul City Conference meeting. Her evened it up yesterday in the team semifinal in three sets. Today it lasted two sets 21-17 and then extra points in the second 22-20.
Gao Zhia Vue finished second for the second straight year. This also is Harding’s fourth straight year having a Knight finishing second. Vue’s final record was 25-5 with three of the losses coming to Her.
Her ended the season 25-4. Her is the Governors’ eighth singles champion.
There were some surprises in the tournament. The biggest went to Edina’s second doubles, who were seeded 14th but they ended up third. Caitlin Ashton and Reese Dakin knocked off #3 seed Harding in the sweet 16 round in three. The Hornet duo ended up in third place topping Highland Park’s Alice Verbrugge and Violet Solem Valentine. That match lasted three sets. 21-12, 13-21, 21-16.
On the singles side for third it was an all Como Park affair and even more specifically and all Solheid affair. Nico outlasted Tsuki in three sets. 18-21, 21-18, 21-16
On the singles side the surprises kept coming for Johnson’s third singles Kelly Sheen. She topped Kpru Paw in three and then took down #4 seed Molly Anderson of Roosevelt.
Roosevelt’s double team of Abigeya Akalewold and Ella Fremstad reached the quarterfinals becoming the first Minneapolis doubles team to do so since 2011. Minneapolis and the Charter schools had the chance to crack the top eight in singles, but were stymied again.
Here is how the reporting is going to go in the foreseeable future:
—game by game results of both singles and doubles
—stats will be taken off video and then published. That will take a few days. After that an indepth of where the bird was delivered by both the winners and losers.
Then there will be an end of the year wrap with the tournament, and numbers galore.
I am exhausted.