St. Louis Shock ended New Jersey 5s’ dominance in emphatic fashion, handing them a 3-0 thrashing in the final of the MLP Mid-Season Tournament at Grand Rapids, Michigan, on July 12 to lift the title and move level at the top of the MLP standings. Both teams now have 93 points each.
Playing before a capacity crowd at Belknap Park, the Shock avenged their sweep at the hands of New Jersey during MLP Columbus in May.
The breakthrough came in women’s doubles, where Anna Bright and Kate Fahey defeated Anna Leigh Waters and Jorja Johnson 11–6 as the pairing suffered their first defeat of the season. Waters and Johnson had won 25 matches in a row before this defeat.
Strategy that paid dividends
Reflecting on the win, Fahey said, “Jorja and Anna Leigh are by far the number one women’s team in MLP, but we played really, really well. We came out with a specific game plan, and it started working. To hit the ball to Anna Leigh is a little bit scary, so we were definitely trying to avoid that.”
That strategy proved decisive, with Bright and Fahey directing their attack toward Johnson rather than Waters, successfully limiting the latter’s involvement.
“It definitely requires discipline and patience. I think it also requires perhaps a lack of pride to an extent, just to kind of say, ‘We’re going to do this, and we’re going to commit to this game plan,'” Bright explained. “It was pretty obvious what we were doing, but it worked.”
St. Louis carried the momentum into the men’s doubles match as Hayden Patriquin and Gabe Tardio outwitted Noe Khlif and Will Howells 11–3, stretching their unbeaten run as a partnership to nine consecutive matches.
Bright then paired up with Patriquin in the mixed doubles match to complete the sweep, defeating Waters and Khlif 11-8 and sealing the title a year after the Shock finished runners-up to the Dallas Flash in the same event.
Columbus Sliders win third place playoff
The victory earned St. Louis 10 standings points, while runners-up New Jersey collected six. Both teams now sit atop the MLP standings on 93 points heading into their final regular-season event. However, St. Louis currently holds the tiebreaker owing to a superior regular-season win rate of 91 per cent, compared to New Jersey’s 86 per cent.
Earlier in the day, the Columbus Sliders beat the Los Angeles Mad Drops 3–1 in the third-place playoff to claim the final podium spot and four standings points.
The regular MLP season will resume with MLP San Diego, to be held from July 16-19 at Barnes Tennis Center in Southern California.
