TOP FOUR PULL AWAY

Summer League round 5~~

It seems the bottom four teams want to make it as easy as possible for the top four to reach the finals. With two rounds to play and 18 points separating 5^th placed “Lord of the Tins” from a play-off berth, there is very little pressure being applied. “The Snooze Brothers” will need to probably triple their current score in the remaining weeks to even have a ghost of a chance of making it. Looks like they have truly lived up to their name.

The top two teams play next week and could help each other out in securing those spots if they keep their current trend of turning up and playing matches. It is difficult right now to see any significant changes over the final 2 weeks to the standings, or any of the bottom four teams presenting a serious challenge for the finals. The ‘good’ news, I suppose, is that there is still 3 weeks to get matches in – albeit Independence Day Holiday is in the middle of it and I am sure many will be away on vacation anyway. But you never know, and that is why you play the game and not award winners based on paper predictions.



Tom Bergh

 It was a relatively quiet evening of matches for round 5, so there are not too many matches to write about. Tom Bergh (“Lord of the Tins”) picked up his second win of the season beating James Stuntz (“The Snooze Brothers”) 2-1. James is new to the game and has been on a tough learning curve so far but he is starting to improve – even though he didn’t win the match, this was the first game James has won. I don’t say this to embarrass him – on the contrary. Being new to the league, I wasn’t sure where to place him on the team and consequently I stuck him a position too high. That’s my fault – I congratulate James for sticking with it!

I watched some of the Joe Schaden (“Lord of the Tins”) versus Anil Kathuria (“The Snooze Brothers”) match-up. Joe scored a close 3-0 victory, (improving his season record to 4and 1) but I mention the game for pure entertainment value. It appeared that both players wanted to make winning as hard as possible for themselves as rallies kept going on and on and on, not until a tin or a winner was hit, but until one of them simply couldn’t run anymore and fatigue got the better of them! Opportunities to end the point were politely refused and instead the ball was played to a position just close enough for the other to scramble to and stay in the rally.

So onto round 6. I dearly hope the teams 5^th – 8^th start making a substantial push and tighten up the standings. At least make the others sweat a little… it is the summer after all!