Flash fight back, hand 5s first DreamBreaker loss
The Dallas Flash (JW Johnson, Jorja Johnson, Tyra Black, Augie Ge) evened their Premier level championship series against the New Jersey 5s (Anna Leigh Waters, Zane Navratil, Mari Humberg, Will Howells) with a DreamBreaker victory under the setting sun at the USTA National Campus.
The day’s second bout between the two powerhouses followed the same sequence as the first, with New Jersey taking women’s doubles and Dallas winning men’s doubles.
From there, Johnson/Johnson put the Flash up 2-1 with a victory over Humberg/Navratil in the first mixed doubles game, while Waters/Howells beat Black/Ge in the second to bring on the DreamBreaker.
Black/Ge almost had a chance to close out the match in regulation when they had a 23-22 lead over Waters/Howells, but the 5s scored three in a row to force the deciding singles contest.
New Jersey—who won the opening match of the series in a DreamBreaker—had not lost in singles all season long, but the Flash didn’t let that deter them as they earned a 21-15 triumph to save their season.
Jorja Johnson and Augie Ge were the MVPs of the DreamBreaker; Johnson outscored Waters 5-3 through two rotations, while Ge outscored Navratil 8-1 to carry Dallas to victory.
For Jorja, belief was everything.
“You’re never gonna win if you don’t believe, so I just went in with all the confidence I could muster,” she said. “The crowd cheering us on definitely helped, too.”
This win sets up a winner-take-all Match 3, where the winning team will receive $80,000 and hoist the Pritchard Cup as 2024 MLP Premier level champions.
Catch the action on Pickleballtv.
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