SOUTHWEST 7, SOUTH 0
I continued my tour of Minneapolis by heading south. As was highlighted yesterday, the stresses Minneapolis has been under was evident today with the host Tigers. Numbers have been extremely low. Today they could only field the singles portion of their lineup and as a result were already in the hole 3-0 before the first serve was attempted. The Tigers had to adjust their line up further as their first singles was out due to illness. Another singles player was also absent. That meant that Lucia DeFlorin moved to the first spot in the singles parade. She was at second in the first three matches this year. The Lakers held the Tigers to single digits in half the sets today. The closest set of the day came at third singles in the second set when Kedra Abdi got 14 against Lauren.
South’s Rodney Lossow is now the longest tenured coach in Minneapolis. His counterpart Zoey has been at the helm at Southwest for the past few years.
I have now seen five of the seven Minneapolis schools. Two more to come of Thursday.
SINGLES
1. Grace, SW def Lucia DeFlorin 21-12, 21-11
2. Chitra, SW def Anna Chen 21-7, 21-13
3. Lauren, SW def Kedra Abdi 21-7, 21-14
4. Eva, SW def Amanda Lala 21-6, 21-6
DOUBLES
1. Abby/Greta, SW def South forfeit
2. Tenzin Y/ Tenzin C, SW def South forfeit
3. Isabel / Lizeth, SW def South forfeit
BY THE NUMBERS
SINGLES
Matches: Southwest 4-0 1.000
Games: Southwest 8-0 1.000
points: Southwest 168-76 .689
Set 1 points: Southwest 84-32 .724
Set 2 points: Southwest 84-44 .656
decided by 10+: Southwest 5-0 1.000
decided by 3-: none
margin: Southwest 11.500
DOUBLES
Matches: Southwest 3-0 1.000
Games: Southwest 6-0 1.000
points: Southwest 12-0 1.000
Set 1 points: Southwest 6-0 1.000
Set 2 points: Southwest 6-0 1.000
decided by 10+: none
decided by 3-: Southwest 6-0 1.000
margin: Southwest 2.000
FIRST SINGLES
Grace 2, Lucia DEFLORIN 0
(21-12, 21-11)
Grace beat Lucia DeFlorin in a two set match. Grace broke open the tight first set (10-10) with runs on her final three services. One feature in that first set was the four straight combined missed serves that knotted the contest at nine. With the 11-2 finish Grace had four winners. That first set finish carried over to open the second set with Grace holding an 8-1 lead after a run of seven. DeFlorin clawed her way back in the contest by scoring on three of her four services. This set involved longer rallies. You can measure that in the average stroke count, but Grace seemed to hold the advantage on that by winning six of the seven points that lasted eight strokes or longer. Every double digit stroke count (3 in total) went to Grace.
Grace won the winner category 17-12. It was the error category where the match was won. Grace took advantage of 25 DeFlorin errors, 14 of which ended up in the net. Grace also held DeFlorin scoreless on eight straight services across the two sets.
| Category | GRACE | DEFLORIN |
| Side out | 10/16-.625 | 4/17-.235 |
| Longest side out string | 8 | 1 |
| 3+ Runs | 5 | 2 |
| Longest point string | 7 | 3 |
| SERVING | ||
| Service points | 26 | 8 |
| Serving % | 38/41-.927 | 22/24-.917 |
| POINTS | 42 | 23 |
| Points after 11 | 20 | 9 |
| Points after own errors | 7 | 9 |
| Winners after own errors | 5 | 3 |
| STROKES | ||
| Strokes | 178 | 77 |
| Strokes per point | 4.238 | 3.348 |
| 5+ rallies | 8 | 6 |
| 2- rallies | 13 | 12 |
| WINNERS | 17 | 12 |
| Aces | 0 | 0 |
| Blocks | 0 | 0 |
| Clears | 7 | 2 |
| Drives | 7 | 2 |
| Drops | 2 | 3 |
| Soft drives | 0 | 4 |
| Smashes | 1 | 1 |
| ERRORS | 11 | 25 |
| Deep | 3 | 2 |
| Net | 3 | 14 |
| Wide | 2 | 7 |
| Serve | 3 | 2 |
| Largest Lead | 10 | 3 |
| W:E Ratio | 1.545 | 0.480 |
| Margin | 9.500 | |
| Set Point % | 2/2-1.000 | |
| Time | 14:44 |