HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — The Carolina Gold Rush, the Princeton Revolution and the New York Slice were separated by just 42 points before the start of Week 13. That’s three teams in prime playoff position, at least one of which will not make it there.

And the Gold Rush did everything in their power to ensure it won’t be them that misses out.

They secured a potential tiebreaker against Princeton with their 15-6 win on Friday. They proved they deserved their standing at the top of the East Division with a 17-4 beatdown of Florida on Saturday. And against a red-hot Los Angeles Spinners team that looked ready to go undefeated this weekend, Edward Ly (SPINDEX: 2710) took an Ultimate Golden Point against Aditya Sareen (2704) to give Carolina its second perfect weekend of Season 3.

Chen Sun (2602) certainly came close to a perfect weekend herself. She swept Princeton’s Hsien Tzu Cheng (2544) on Friday and Florida’s Tashiya Piyadasa (2376) on Saturday before taking two of three from Los Angeles’ Matilda Ekholm (2584)  on Saturday. Chen was just one game away from an immaculate weekend, but only nine players have even managed to win eight Singles games all year. Chen included. In fact, she just became the first player of Season 3 to finish with eight Singles wins … twice.

That’s actually how Chen introduced herself to the league. She finished her MLTT debut with eight wins in Week 2, a feat that earned her Female Player of the Week. And after her second eight-win weekend during Week 13, which now makes her the league’s No. 5 player and top-ranked woman, it wouldn’t be a surprise if she wins her second Player of the Week award as well.

No individual player can win three matches on their own. That accomplishment requires a team effort, so it’s a good thing that Carolina brought its most complete roster so far this season to Hollywood, Fla. Eugene Wang (2811) won seven games against Princeton’s Benedek Olah (2710), Florida’s Marc Duran (2675) and Los Angeles’s Kou Lei (2746). Angles swept Princeton’s Koyo Kanamitsu (2682) on Friday and scored 10 Golden Game points. And speaking of the Golden Game, Ly scored an astounding 13 points in his three Golden Games, including his ultimate Golden Point that secured Carolina’s third win of the weekend.

“All other matches until today, we’ve never had the whole team come together,” Gold Rush coach Alex Yang said.

Carolina now returns to the top of the East Division with a 9-6 record and 164 points. That throne certainly matters to a very confident Gold Rush team, but their main goal is still to make it back to Championship Weekend. The best way to do that is to overwhelm their opponents with a massive point total, and this weekend helped them accomplish that goal as well. As of this article’s publication, Carolina now leads third-place Princeton by 14 points with just 63 points left to go.

The Gold Rush have just three more matches to maintain that lead, and they’re looking forward to them. They’ll play those three matches at the Charlotte Convention Center in front of a home crowd very eager to vocalize their support. And if the Gold Rush score 49 out of 63 available points in those final few matches, they can clinch a spot in the postseason in front of that home crowd.

This weekend was a golden opportunity for the Gold Rush to boost their odds at defending their championship trophy. And during that weekend, the Gold Rush reminded the league why “gold” is a part of their name.

“If we go to the playoffs,” Yang said, “We’re really competitive for the Finals, and even a championship.”

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Los Angeles Spinners

It has been a tumultuous and unlucky year for the Los Angeles Spinners, whose regular season mercifully ended after Week 13.

And judging from their performance this weekend, it’s clear they saved their best for last.

At the very least, Matilda Ekholm did. She started off the weekend without dropping a single game against either of Florida’s Tashiya Piyadasa or Jiangshan Guo (2537). Her fingerprints were all over the Spinners’ success this weekend, even with her two losses to Carolina’s Chen Sun on Sunday. With her team’s playoff ambitions on the line, Ekholm had a Week 13 performance that removed any possible doubt that she’s been one of the league’s strongest women this season, something her team has enabled her to be.

“I try to give her maximum confidence so she can feel good at the table and give her best table tennis,” Spinners coach Romain Lorentz said.

Ekholm’s dominance this weekend could be matched by a minuscule list of players that includes teammate Aditya Sareen (2704). There was plenty of pressure on his shoulders. Sareen started his Season 3 as primarily the Doubles partner of Ľubomír Pištej (2717). But he earned more responsibility in Singles as the year went on. His 1-on-1 opportunities increased until the Spinners’ final weekend, in which he played in all three of his Singles matches.

And he may have been the Spinners’ most productive Singles player all weekend. He swept Florida’s Marc Duran on Friday before taking two from Princeton’s Benedek Olah on Saturday and Carolina’s Enzo Angles on Sunday. He contributed 12 points in his three Golden Games, which include his seven-point outburst against Princeton’s Koyo Kanamitsu on Saturday. Sareen came into Broward Table Tennis Club with limited experience in Singles this season, and he left with seven wins against some of the best Singles players in the entire league.

“I wanted him to play more Singles this weekend,” Lorentz said. “He’s young, he needs to play good games, and he showed me that we can count on him.”

Ekholm, Sareen and the rest of the Spinners seem to love Florida. Broward Table Tennis Club is the same place they arrived at with a 1-5 record in Week 7, the same week they began their mid-season turnaround. After that week, the Spinners rallied to three consecutive 2-1 weekends, including this one. By the time they lost to the Carolina Gold Rush 8-13 on Sunday, the Spinners knew they would leave Florida with multiple wins. They’d done exactly that with a 15-6 win against Florida on Friday and a 13-8 victory over Princeton on Saturday.

The Spinners truly gave unbelievable effort this weekend. But that effort wasn’t enough. They needed to score at least 39 points this weekend to stay in the postseason race, but they only managed to score 36. The Spinners finished their regular season with an 8-10 record and 182 points, which falls behind both the Texas Smash’s 184 points and the Chicago Wind’s 227 points. That makes them the first team to be eliminated from the playoffs … by just three points.

With that said, there’s a lot to look forward to for the Spinners next season. They’re expected to have a high first-round Season 4 Draft selection, which they could use on Nigerian superstar Quadri Aruna (ITTF Men’s Singles No. 48) if luck falls in their favor. Even without an additional star, they have a strong core that’s just starting to mesh with one another. They’ve learned how to win matches together, and they hope to win even more in Season 4.

“I will remember only the good moments,” Lorentz said, “And hopefully we will learn altogether from the difficult losses for next season.”

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Princeton Revolution

Eight wins in Singles against Carolina’s Wei Wang (2672), Los Angeles’s Kou Lei (2746) and Florida’s Asuka Sakai (2763). Seven wins in Doubles alongside free agent Jonatan Mcdonald (2612). Fourteen points in the Golden Game against Sakai, Los Angeles’s Marcos Madrid (2651) and Carolina’s Edward Ly. That’s the stat line Princeton Revolution star Seungmin Cho (2818) walked out of Broward Table Tennis Club with at the end of Week 13, one of the most dominant individual performances of the entire season. A player with that stat line usually guides their team to multiple victories in a single weekend.

It did not lead to a single win in Week 13.

Cho did not receive much help from his teammates this weekend. The Revolution only won two of the matchups in which Cho did not compete. Hsien Tzu Cheng and Benedek Olah found individual success, but not enough to string together a team win. Instead, the Revolution lost 6-15 to Carolina on Friday, 8-13 to Los Angeles on Saturday and 10-11 to Florida on Sunday.

This lack of Week 13 wins put them at a massive disadvantage with just two weeks left to go in the regular season. They’re now the third seed in the East Division with a 5-10 record and 150 points, which means they would miss the playoffs if the season ended today. Not only does Carolina hold the tiebreaker against Princeton after Friday’s match, but the Revolution just watched the Gold Rush strengthen their standing in an East Division they hoped to conquer as soon as this weekend.

All hope is not lost for the Revolution, though. They’re still very much in the running for an East Division playoff spot, but they’re currently 11 points behind second-place New York. And with just three matches and 63 available points left in the season, they can’t afford to lose many more points when they return for Week 15. They’ll have the benefit of playing those final matches in front of their fans in Lawrenceville, N.J., and that home crowd will be under a lot of pressure to help alleviate the pressure Princeton is about to face.

Florida Crocs

The Florida Crocs just needed something to go their way.

They haven’t had much good fortune all season. It started with a season-ending hip surgery for superstar Liam Pitchford. It continued with a 2-4 record in their first two weeks. It even lasted into February, as they ended their month with a five-match losing streak dating back to Week 7, their first homestand of the season. And after the first two games of Week 13, in the second homestand of their season, they added two more matches to that skid with a 6-15 loss to Los Angeles on Friday and a 4-17 loss to Carolina on Saturday.

So after all the dreadful luck the Crocs endured all year, including all weekend, they could have really used a win on Sunday. Not to increase their long-shot odds at making the postseason, but just to feel a sense of pride after a match. Such a feeling wouldn’t be easy to achieve. They’d have to earn it against the Princeton Revolution, a team with genuine Championship Weekend ambitions.

The return of Asuka Sakai made their goal slightly more attainable, though. He took two games from each of Los Angeles’s Kou Lei and Carolina’s Enzo Angles before Sunday’s match, making him Florida’s best choice against the then-undefeated Seungmin Cho in Singles 1. He didn’t take that match, but he was the only player to take a game from Cho all weekend, which was enough to earn his team a point.

They lost their final two matchups prior to the 10-minute intermission after doubles, but Angel Naranjo (2632) and Chihwei Yeh (2644) picked away at Princeton’s lead before the Golden Game, which they entered at a five-point deficit. They needed a lot of luck to win this match, which would only result in a one-point victory if successful.

And yet, Florida persisted. They wanted that victory badly. The score was uncomfortably close throughout the Golden Game, and that’s because the Crocs wouldn’t let the Revolution run away with the match. Even when Princeton reached 20 points first, Daniel Gorak (2663) forced an Ultimate Golden Point against Jonatan Mcdonald. The Revolution sent out first-round draft pick Hsien Tzu Cheng to score that point. Facing her would be Tashiya Piyadasa, the 16-year-old free agent signing wearing her third different jersey in three straight match weeks. The last time she wore a Crocs jersey was in Week 2, the same week she lost an Ultimate Golden Point to Carolina’s Chen Sun. And with the Golden Game, the match, and potentially the Crocs’ season on the line, Piyadasa served the ball, hoping for a different outcome this time.

A loud silence suddenly filled Broward Table Tennis Club … until Piyadasa scored the final point.

The Crocs’ bench erupted for Piyadasa, who may have just saved her team’s season. They still sit at the bottom of the East Division with a 4-11 record and 114 points, but they still have a maximum point total of 117 with just three matches left to go. That means that they can still qualify for the postseason, and they could have that chance when they conclude their season in Lawrenceville, N.J., for Week 15.

Whether or not they manage to make the playoffs this season, the Crocs are looking forward to a future that not only includes Pitchford’s return, but also potentially a very high draft pick to complement him. A future superstar like Quadri Aruna could very well join a Season 4 Crocs lineup that may include Pitchford, Gorak, Sakai, Marc Duran and Peiyu Zhu (2570), which would be one of the East Division’s most formidable lineups. That lineup doesn’t seem fair for the league, but no one has experienced a lack of fairness quite like the Crocs this year.

After the season they’ve had, they deserve at least a few wins.

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