Phlower Vang of St. Paul Highland Park, who avenged her only loss, is the Metro Player of the Year in badminton

St. Paul Highland Park’s Phlower Vang trounced the competition throughout her final season of high school badminton, concluding with a 31-1 record.

That one loss was in a conference singles match against Kimberly Tobar of St. Paul Harding, a loss Vang avenged in the championship round of the 2024 badminton state tournament.

“Harding was the one I was searching out for because I knew she was up there with me,” Vang said. “But anything else was fairly easy.”

It was also a fairly easy choice to declare Vang the Star Tribune’s Metro Player of the Year in badminton.

Entering the tournament, Vang was ranked No. 1 in the state and seeded No. 1, after a season in which her sister, Sunshine, won the state title and Phlower finished fourth. Phlower, a senior, capitalized on the opportunity to add to the family legacy.

“I was close to playing my sister last year, but then I lost so I knew that this year I had to win,” said Vang, who plans to stay in St. Paul and attend Metropolitan State, seeking a degree in nursing. “It is really cool being up there with her.”

Vang finished with a career total of 53 wins, second most in the state in the past three seasons. She stopped 11 short of Sunshine’s total.

When Vang doesn’t have a racket in hand, she is still on a court, playing volleyball. But her love for badminton prevails and has since she picked up the sport in sixth grade.

“Badminton is not a well-known sport, but that’s what I like about it,” Vang said. “It’s not like volleyball where the net’s like 7 or 8 feet where height matters, or like tennis, where you have to have those upper-strength arms to hit it.”