The New Jersey 5s and St. Louis Shock entered this week’s Edward Jones MLP Mid-Season Tournament as the top seeds, and both teams appear to be deserving of their respective seeds after earning convincing semifinal victories on Saturday. 

The 5s—who hold the No. 1 seed after winning their last three events—defeated the Columbus Sliders 3-1 to advance. 

Just like in their most recent meeting at MLP Austin, the squads split the gender doubles games with Anna Leigh Waters/Jorja Johnson winning women’s doubles for New Jersey and Andrei Daescu/CJ Klinger taking men’s doubles for Columbus. 

From there, New Jersey’s mixed doubles pairings of Johnson/Will Howells and Waters/Noe Khlif both won their respective games to help the 5s become the first team to book their spot in Sunday’s final. 

Waters/Khlif closed out the contest with an 11-7 victory over Parris Todd/Andrei Daescu to earn their tenth straight win together and improve to 23-2 as a partnership. 

Waters says she feels that Khlif and her regular partner on the PPA Tour, Ben Johns, play a similar brand of mixed doubles. 

“I honestly feel like Ben and Noe play kind of similar in a way,” she told Pickleballtv’s Kamryn Blackwood and Matt Manasse. “Maybe Noe doesn’t flick quite as much as Ben, but he has the same backhand dink consistency. His drops are very similar; he shows a little bit more emotion than Ben does on the court, but it’s overall very similar, so I love playing with him.” 

Waters and Johns have won 64 PPA titles together, so a comparison like that bodes well for New Jersey as the 5s prepare to face another challenge on Sunday in the form of the St. Louis Shock. 

The Shock defeated the Los Angeles Mad Drops 3-1 in the final match of the day at Belknap Park. 

Anna Bright/Kate Fahey gave St. Louis an early advantage with a 12-10 victory over Catherine Parenteau/Jade Kawamoto in a back-and-forth encounter. 

Bright/Fahey jumped out to a 7-1 lead but ended up facing game point at 9-10 before rallying to close out the opening game. 

“It’s always a tough out with Jade and Catherine,” Bright said afterwards. “I think we started really strong. We responded to their aggression really well initially, but then I think they pulled back a little bit and the points got a little bit more grindier; I think them going back to their default is actually kind of what messed us up there. We got up 7-1, and then from there it was just an absolute dogfight.” 

Notably, the Mad Drops were assessed a Blue Card after a frustrated Parenteau hit a ball that struck a fan in the crowd after the final point. 

That penalty gave the Shock’s Hayden Patriquin/Gabe Tardio a 1-0 lead over Ben Johns/Max Freeman in the men’s doubles game, a point that helped lift them to a 12-10 win to put St. Louis up 2-0 going into mixed doubles. 

Kawamoto/Johns got Los Angeles on the board with an 11-8 win over Bright/Patriquin, but Fahey/Tardio went on to seal the deal with an 11-7 win over Parenteau/Freeman to give the Shock their third straight win over the Mad Drops. 

Saturday’s results set New Jersey and St. Louis up to meet for the third time this season in the final; the Shock took a DreamBreaker win when they met at the season-opening MLP Dallas, and the 5s earned a 3-0 sweep one week later at MLP Columbus. 

The mid-season tournament title—and the 10 standings points that come with it—will be up for grabs when they meet once again on Sunday in Grand Rapids.

The match will be broadcast live on FOX starting Sunday at 3pm ET. Click here to watch.