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State badminton: Johnson wins seventh straight team title, this time in dramatic fashion

jace frederick, pioneer press
·2 min read

It was the closest match Mark Fischbach has been a part of as Johnson’s badminton coach.

“And it was incredible,” he said.

Wednesday’s state title match came down to the wire. After the first sets, Washington led four of the seven matches in its bid to end the Governors’ run of consecutive state titles. But Johnson roared back and claimed three of the first four final results.

It just needed one more match out of the final three to claim another state crown.

“To have three sets going on at the same time to decide the match, we kind of brought the team together and talked about how the pressure is not on one person, but you want to be the reason for the team,” Fischbach said.

The win came from what may have looked like an unlikely source.

Alexis Xiong and Lena Nguyen rallied from a first-set defeat to win at No. 3 doubles, giving Johnson a 4-3 victory over Washington at Eden Prairie High School to win the Governors their seventh straight state title, 11th in the past 12 years and 12th overall in program history.

It was surprising, perhaps, considering the duo featured one player who hadn’t played badminton prior to this season and another who was just elevated to varsity last week.

“To step up and just be able to play at a high level and decide the match was really something special,” Fischbach said.

That was the story of Johnson’s season. A rash of injuries and illnesses meant players had to step up.

It reached a point where Johnson’s coaching staff considered jumbling its lineups to find different combinations. Instead, the Governors elected to keep elevating players who’d put in the work to earn their opportunities. The move paid off. Another title is Johnson’s.

That was likely much to the chagrin of everyone else in attendance. Johnson is Goliath, and everyone else is always waiting for it to fall. Not this year.

Fischbach credited the alumni activity with helping Johnson stay on top. Six Johnson alums — one assistant and five volunteers — were on hand Wednesday to help coach and keep the streak alive.

“The young girls take pride in the tradition and they see the older girls and how much it means to them, too,” he said. “We talk about how everyone is rooting against us, so we’ve got to be with each other. The whole gym is cheering when the other girl gets a point, and we just have our 10 teammates and the alumni — it’s a little different. … It’s our team, that’s what we focus on. We try to block out the noise and just focus on what we accomplish. We work hard and we earn it.”

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