Out & About: Harding/Johnson

#2 posting 4.23.2007
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ST. PAUL HARDING knights 5
ST. PAUL JOHNSON governors 2

Harding swept the singles, and took first doubles for a 5-2 win over Johnson. Earlier in the season Harding won 7-0. Johnson juggled their line up from Friday with Pakou Vang, back from a funeral, paired up at first doubles with Ye Thao, who has played 3rd singles most of the year. That moved the Johnson 1st doubles team of Obermeyer-Kolb and Thao down to second and that bumped Yang and Pha down to third. This is where Johnson picked up tight wins. Six of the doubles games were decided by four points or less. Both first and second doubles went three games and in both situations the winning pair had to rally for wins in game two and three.
In the Singles it was a clear advantage for Harding at one and two as they did not allow Johnson double digits in any of the four games. Fourth singles went the distance and it was a tight contest. Kazoua Yang took game three by three.

FIRST SINGLES
In the battle of Pang Thao it was Harding's defending state champion holding Johnson's Thao to 9 points in each game. Since both players are Pang Thao I will identify these players by school only. Johnson led early at 2-0. On Harding's second serve she regained the lead at 4-2 with three straight points. The last Johnson lead came after an ace at 5-4. But the main difference was the side out ability of both. The only side out Johnson had was on Harding's first serve. After that Harding scored on six straight serves. Johnson did not score after her second serve.

In the first game Harding used 11 gifts from Johnson for the win. Harding was much more active in game two. Her short ace game was working on the day with three that game and five for the match. Harding scored on serves 2-3, and 5-6 and led at points 16-5 and 20-7. Now I had the win at 21-8, but the match went on officially at 21-9 (or 22-9).

SIDEOUTS: Harding 11/14 .786; Johnson 4/15 .267
SERVE RUNS: Harding 6, Johnson 0
POINTS:
Harding 43* (by my count): Winners: 25: Drops 7, Drives 6, Aces 5, Clears 4, Smashes 3
Johnson Errors 18: hitting 18 (Net 9, Wide 9); serving 0
Johnson 18: Winners 11: Drive 6, Drops 4, Ace 1
Harding Errors 7: hitting 6 (Net 3, Wide 3), serving 1 (deep)

FOURTH SINGLES
Kazoua Yang won the first game 21-15 despite handing over 12 points on errors---especially serving errors. She had six in that game. Yang didn't put distance between herself and Garcia until her 6th serve. That is when she racked up four service points to take the lead 11-9. She scored on each serve after that with another run of three on her 8th serve to make it 18-12.

In game two Yang cleaned up her serve game, but Desirae Garcia delivered 8 points off of drops. Garcia did lead 8-5, but fell behind after Yang ran off three points on her 6th serve 10-8. Garcia tied it at 11 and then built her lead up to 16-13 after a smash. Yang tied it with three straight points. Both players traded side outs to 19-18 advantage Garcia. On Garcia's 12th serve she put in two drops for the win.

Garcia kept the momentum generated in game two as she built a 9-3 lead. Garcia had a run of six on her third serve. Again the drops were dropping with three points in the mix, but she never got a point off the drop after that. Yang fought back and tied it at 11 with a run of four. She was taking advantage of Garcia errors with three hitting errors. Yang jumped back in front 15-12 on her fifth serve with the clear game working for three of the four straight points. Garcia wasn't finished and had her own run of three service points on her 7th serve to go up 17-16. On Garcia's 8th serve Yang sided out with a drop to tie it at 18. Yang didn't give the bird up with three straight including an ace at 20 and a drive to finish up 21-18.

SIDEOUTS: Yang 14/29 .483; Garcia 12/29 .414
SERVE RUNS: Yang 6, Garcia 2
POINTS:
Yang 60: Winners: 33: Drops 14, Drives 10, Clears 6, Aces 2, Smash 1
Garcia Errors 27: hitting 18 (Net 12, wide 8, fan 3); serving 4 (wide 2, net 1, short 1)
Garcia 54: Winners 22: Drop 16, Drive 2, Smash 2, Clears 2
Yang Errors 32: hitting 23 (net 10, wide 5, drive 5, fan 3), serving 9 (deep 6, wide 3)

SINGLES
1. Pang Thao (H) def Pang Thao 21-9, 21-9
2. Mee Xiong (H) def Kao Xiong Lee 21-3, 21-9
3. Stephanie King (H) def Gina Garcia 21-15, ??
4. Kazoua Yang (H) def Desirae Garcia 21-15, 18-21, 21-18
DOUBLES
1. Dia Xiong/PaNhia Yang (H) def Pakou Vang/Ye Thao 21-23, 23-21, 21-13
2. Karen Obermeyer-Kolb/Kia Thao (J) def Pa Yang/Shee Xiong 18-21, 21-19, 21-18
3. Mai Ka Yang/Bellick Pha (J) def Mor Xiong/Mai Ngia Xiong 21-17, 21-13

BY THE NUMBERS
SINGLES
Matches: Harding 4-0 1.000
Games: Harding 8-1 .889
Points: Harding 186-99? .653
decided by 10+: Harding 4-0
decided by 3 or less: 1-1
DOUBLES
matches: Johnson 2-1 .667
games: Johnson 5-3 .625
points: Johnson 159-153 .510
decided by 10+: none
decided by 3: Johnson 3-2 .600

Next up: tomorrow morning