EDINA 4, HARDING 3
History was made on Thursday afternoon in Edina. #8 Edina upset #4 Harding on Thursday afternoon for their first win over the Knights in a dozen tries dating back to 2011. If you add up the scores of the first eleven contests Harding would be up 69-8. The last three meetings ended up 6-1 Harding. The closest Edina came to a W came in the state semifinals in 2013 when they lost 4-3. That was their only match against the Knights where they had more than one victory. This outcome will be sure to scramble the weekly rankings out on Sunday.
The Hornets took the last three singles and the third doubles in their win today. No match went over two sets. There were three sets, all in doubles, where the margin between sets was three. Harding won two of those. The margins in doubles were equal at zero even though the Knights won two of the three contests. The singles margins were also tight with Edina holding a 2.5 advantage.
SINGLES
1. Kanlaya Thao, H def Betsie Lundberg 21-15 21-6
2. Tenzin Tsephel, E def Lillian Lee 21-15, 21-12
3. Petra Smythe, E def Mai C Lee 21-11, 21-16
4. Hazel Dang, E def Gaohli Vang 21-17, 21-14
DOUBLES
1. Kimberly Tobar / Ana Xiong, H def Ella Zawoyski / Anna Olson 21-18, 21-13
2. Sha Mee Lee/ Paw Soe, H def Nora Ritter / Sanna Coma 21-15, 21-18
3. Ivy Peterson / Gabrielle Monnot, E def Christina Chang / Isabelle Gutierrez 21-4, 21-18
BY THE NUMBERS
SINGLES
Matches: Edina 3-1 .750
Games: Edina 6-2 .750
points: Edina 147-127 .536
Set 1 points: Edina 78-64 .549
Set 2 points: Edina 69-63 .523
decided by 10+: Edina 1-1 .500
decided by 3-: none
margin: Edina 2.500
DOUBLES
Matches: Harding 2-1 .667
Games: Harding 4-2 .667
points: Harding 106-106 .500
Set 1 points: Edina 54-46 .540
Set 2 points: Harding 60-52 .536
decided by 10+: Edina 1-0 1.000
decided by 3-: Harding 2-1 .667
margin: Edina 0.000
FIRST SINGLES
Kanlaya THAO 2, Betsie LUNDBERG 0
(21-15, 21-6)
#1 ranked Kanlaya Thao of Harding stopped Betsie Lundberg in two sets. The point totals did come out correctly—-for the match, but I had Thao up 22-15 in the first set, and 20-6 in the second. The miscounting aside Thao racked up a big advantage in winners at 32-7. Thao’s winner of choice today was the soft tear drop drive to Lundberg’s right front corner, especially after a Lundberg serve. Thao had a lucky 13 soft drives with seven of them coming on the two stroke. Of the 13 potential side out chances Thao had 53% of them come on the two stroke soft drive. But that number rockets up to 77% if you look at two stroke winners. Thao actually had more errors than Lundberg and the stroke counts were up over four for each player. The longest rally came on point 21 (I mean 22) in the first set where Thao went 13 strokes on a drop to Lundberg’s right front corner. In that set Lundberg led at one point 11-8 (my count). The Hornet put together the first string with five straight (8-6). The tide shifted for Thao on Lundberg’s seventh service when a two stroke soft drive started an eight point run that put Thao up 16-12. Thao ended that first set with two clears followed by the marathon drop.
The momentum of the first set (14-4) carried over into set two with Thao garnering three runs including a ten point run (16-4). Imbedded in that run was three straight smashes, all five strokes or longer. Again, that run started on the two stroke soft drive to Lundberg’s right front corner.
One interesting fact in this match was the points after own errors. Thao had nine such points on corrections (64%), all for winners. Lundberg only had two points after her errors (20%).
| Category | THAO | LUNDBERG |
| Side out | 8/13-.615 | 4/14-.286 |
| Longest side out string | 3 | 3 |
| 3+ Runs | 5 | 1 |
| Longest point string | 10 | 5 |
| SERVING | ||
| Service points | 29 | 8 |
| Serving % | 41/42-.976 | 21/21-1.000 |
| Point generated off serve | 29/42-.690 | 6/21-.286 |
| POINTS | 42 | 21 |
| Points after 11 | 23 | 6 |
| Points after own errors | 9 | 2 |
| Winners after own errors | 9 | 1 |
| STROKES | ||
| Strokes | 173 | 87 |
| Strokes per point | 4.119 | 4.143 |
| 5+ rallies | 18 | 8 |
| 2- rallies | 15 | 5 |
| WINNERS | 32 | 7 |
| Aces | 1 | 0 |
| Blocks | 0 | 0 |
| Clears | 5 | 2 |
| Drives | 2 | 3 |
| Drops | 3 | 1 |
| Soft drives | 13 | 0 |
| Smashes | 8 | 1 |
| ERRORS | 14 | 10 |
| Deep | 5 | 1 |
| Fan | 0 | 0 |
| Net | 4 | 4 |
| Wide | 4 | 5 |
| Serve | 1 | 0 |
| Largest Lead | 14 | 3 |
| W:E Ratio | 2.286 | 0.700 |
| Margin | 10.500 | |
| Set Point % | 2/3-.667 | |
| Time | 13:57 |