The Los Angeles Mad Drops (6-4, 17pts) defeated the St. Louis Shock (8-1, 24pts) in a DreamBreaker to give St. Louis its first loss of the 2025 season.

Catherine Parenteau/Jade Kawamoto continued their stellar play for Los Angeles with an 11-5 victory over the previously undefeated duo of Anna Bright/Kate Fahey in women’s doubles to open up the match.

They have now won nine matches in a row over some of the top women’s doubles partnerships in MLP, including Bright/Fahey, Jorja Johnson/Tyra Black, Anna Leigh Waters/Meghan Dizon, and Rachel Rohrabacher/Jackie Kawamoto.

Parenteau says that a solid understanding of roles has been the key to her and Kawamoto’s success so far.

“We talk a lot about strategy before every match, and we just trust each other,” she mentioned. “I mean, Jade is a rock next to me. She won’t miss a dink, a reset, or anything, really, and I just have to do my job and try to be aggressive. That balance has been working out for us.”

Despite dropping the first match of the contest, St. Louis evened things up with Hayden Patriquin/Gabe Tardio’s 11-4 victory over Quang Duong/Hunter Johnson in men's doubles.

The Shock carried that momentum with them into the first mixed doubles bout, where Fahey/Tardio dominated Kawamoto/Johnson by an 11-2 score line.

With the Mad Drops’ backs against the wall, Parenteau/Duong kept Los Angeles alive with an 11-3 win over Bright/Patriquin to force a DreamBreaker.

Los Angeles, though, is no ordinary DreamBreaker squad.

The Mad Drops have three players who are currently ranked inside the top ten in the PPA Tour singles rankings: Johnson (No. 2 in men’s singles), Duong (No. 6 in men’s singles), and Parenteau (No. 7 in women’s singles).

That is a brutally strong singles lineup, a fact that became fully evident when Johnson and Duong combined to outscore Patriquin and Tardio 14-3 in the DreamBreaker.

Those standout performances helped Los Angeles secure a 21-12 triumph and hand St. Louis its first loss of 2025.

Even though the Mad Drops have played ten matches so far, Thursday’s was only their third match of the season playing at full strength. Johnson was forced to miss the season-opening event in Orlando due to an injury, and Duong missed all but two matches last week in Phoenix while serving a suspension from the UPA.

“It feels good to be here and finally compete as a full team,” Johnson said. “We’re just going to try and keep building off of this win. St. Louis is obviously an amazing team, and they all played very well. Our team stepped up when we needed to, and the DreamBreaker just fell into place perfectly.”

Both squads have plenty more work to do this week in the Sunshine State. St. Louis will play the Utah Black Diamonds and Carolina Hogs on Friday, while Los Angeles will next be in action on Saturday against Carolina.