The New Jersey 5s and Los Angeles Mad Drops are both just one win away from advancing to the Premier level semifinals after series-opening victories on Saturday.

New Jersey swept the Texas Ranchers but were pushed in both gender doubles games.

In women’s doubles, Anna Leigh Waters/Meghan Dizon overcame a 6-10 deficit and saved five game points before escaping with a win over the Ranchers’ Tina Pisnik/Kaitlyn Christian.

A few minutes later in men’s doubles, Will Howells/Noe Khlif use a nine-point run to overcome a 2-6 deficit against Christian Alshon/Eric Oncins and give New Jersey a commanding 2-0 lead going into mixed.

Howells, who went on to finish the 3-0 sweep with Waters in the first mixed doubles game, gave some insight into how he and Khlif turned the tide after the end switch in men’s doubles.

“The biggest thing was just trusting our shots and going for it. I think we started engaging our feet more and really going downhill with everything,” he explained. “The wind is a bit of a factor, and the ball was dipping a little bit more, so we decided to drive some more on that side, and I think that helped a lot.”

In the day’s second contest on Championship Court, Los Angeles swept the Brooklyn Pickleball Team in a truly dominant performance.

Brooklyn won both regular season meetings between the two squads, but the late-season acquisition of Ben Johns helped the Mad Drops triumph on Saturday. He and Hunter Johnson beat Dekel Bar/Riley Newman 11-1 before he and Catherine Parenteau beat Rachel Rohrabacher/Bar 11-3 to close out the sweep.

Johns spoke about what he and Johnson did to take advantage of the challenging conditions in San Diego.

“Obviously the conditions out here are a little tough for everybody with the wind. It’s pretty gusty in certain directions and swirling, so it’s a little unpredictable. Hunter’s got probably the best drive in pickleball, and I know that’s pretty tough to deal with, so our gameplan was for both of us to be driving balls and hopefully get some free points off of that,’ he explained.

New Jersey and Los Angeles will play the second (and, if needed, third) matches of their respective quarterfinal series on Sunday.