The New Jersey Fives won their third straight event on Sunday, in the MLP New York Super Sunday Final. SPORTIME Randall s Island hosted the event for the second straight year.
It was an all hometown final, with the Fives and the Brooklyn Pickleball Team making the finals. However, the Fives swept Brooklyn, 11-1, 11-8, 11-4. New Jersey capped off their third straight event win in dominant fashion and have now taken control of first place in terms of total points and points per event.
The Fives got off to a slow start in MLP Dallas in the first event, losing to the Columbus Sliders on Friday, the first day they played, and then losing to the St. Louis Shock for third place on Super Sunday. Since then, the Fives have won MLP Columbus, MLP Austin, and now MLP New York.
The only hiccup along the way this weekend actually came against the Texas Ranchers on Sunday (more on this later). The Ranchers were able to hand the Fives their first loss after a 15 match undefeated streak, in a tight 21-19 Dreambreaker.
Let s get into all of the storylines.
The LED videoboard fell down on Thursday and landed on Rachel Rohrabacher
In what turned out to be a crazy and chaotic Thursday afternoon, the videoboard collapsed on Rachel Rohrabacher during a match between the Brooklyn Pickleball Team and the Bay Area Breakers.
In the first game of the match (women s doubles), the Bay Area Breakers were serving, down 2-10-2, with Rachel getting ready to return serve. Out of nowhere, there were some gasps from the crowd and a yell of look out! , but the video board collapsed toward the court, and landed on what appeared to be Rachel s left leg.
The scene was chaos for a few minutes while teammates rushed the court to lift the board off of her and ensure she was taken care of. The medical staff took care of Rohrabacher and the operations team were able to lift the board back upright and secure it.
With play resuming, the Breakers showed tremendous sportsmanship, conceding women s doubles, as they were already down 10-2. This gave Rachel the opportunity to get examined without feeling the need to rush out onto the court. In mixed doubles, Hannah Blatt stepped in and played with Chris Haworth in a game that only mattered for tie breakers, as Brooklyn won the first three games.
Rachel did not play on Friday, but did suit up for a couple of games on Thursday. She was definitely not 100%, but seemed to be pushing to help her teammates. A second place finish in an event where arguably your best player was injured in an accident is an unbelievable outcome for Brooklyn. Rachel made this statement on Sunday:
Obviously, prayers and thoughts are with Rachel during her recovery.
The Texas Teams Came Roaring Back to Life
The Dallas Flash and Texas Ranchers took fourth and third place, respectively, in MLP New York.
In MLP Austin, the Flash finished last in their pool of six teams, earning zero standings points in the event. They were without Hurricane Tyra Black, who was battling an illness. Between that event and this event, Dallas traded Tyra to Columbus in exchange for Danni Townsend and then also traded Albie Huang to Phoenix in exchange for Alix Truong.
The Flash finished in second place in Pool B and went 4-1 in their matches.
The Ranchers were coming off an MLP St. Petersburg event where newly acquired Nico Acevedo got a little dinged up and Layne Sleeth ended the event in a shoulder sling. They had to make some roster moves and ended up picking up Rafa Hewett and Angie Walker on Waivers and then in the first four team trade in MLP history, acquired Kaitlyn Christian.
The Ranchers started off the weekend well, winning their first two matches, but then had a hiccup against SoCal, losing in a Dreambreaker 21-19. This looked to derail their plans of a top four finish. However, on Sunday, after some weather pushed some matches back from Saturday until Sunday, the Ranchers were able to hand the Fives their only loss on the weekend in another Dreambreaker, 21-19. Nico Acevedo proved to be the differencemaker, going 10-2 in his Dreambreaker points against Noe Khlif.
Fittingly, the somewhat new teams from Texas, the Flash and the Ranchers, met for the third place match on Super Sunday. The Ranchers again pressed their luck, making it to a Dreambreaker, and beat the Flash 21-19 in their second Dreambreaker of the day. In this Dreambreaker, Oncins proved to be the differencemakers, going 9-3 against Augie Ge.
The Ranchers took home 15 standings points and third place, while the Flash went home with 12 standings points and a fourth place finish. All in all, it was a great weekend for the two teams.