Samantha Parker and Dylan Frazier competing for the Orlando Squeeze at the Edward Jones MLP MId-Season Tournament.
Samantha Parker and Dylan Frazier competing for the Orlando Squeeze at the Edward Jones MLP MId-Season Tournament. Major League Pickleball

Orlando battles past Utah, sets quarterfinal clash with Dallas

The Orlando Squeeze closed out Thursday’s Round of 16 action with a 3-1 victory over the Utah Black Diamonds.

The Squeeze—who had lost six of their last nine matches coming into this week—dominated both gender doubles matches thanks to standout performances from Lacy Schneemann/Samantha Parker in women’s doubles and Federico Staksrud/Dylan Frazier in men’s doubles.

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Allyce Jones/Connor Garnett defeated Schneemann/Staksrud 12-10 in the first mixed doubles game to keep Utah alive, but Parker/Frazier ended the contest with an 11-5 victory over Genie Erokhina/Yates Johnson (who was filling in for Tyler Loong).

The Dallas Flash, the only remaining undefeated team in MLP, await the Squeeze in Friday’s quarterfinal round.

Even though his team won’t be favored in that matchup, Staksrud knows that anything can happen in Major League Pickleball.

“We’re a great team,” he asserted. “We’ve been near the top of the standings every month, and yeah, we had a couple bad events in New York and Austin, but we know what we’re capable of and are just gonna try and do our best this week. We’ve got four amazing players, and today Sam and Dylan stepped up and played really well in that last mixed game. They played amazing the whole way through, and we advanced because of that.”

Action from Belknap Park continues on Friday with the Challenger level finals, followed by the beginning of the Premier level quarterfinals.