OVER THE HALF-WAY MARK

Summer League round 4~~

Can you believe it? The Summer League is already on the downhill run. Four rounds in, and three to go. The good news is that 6 teams are still very much in the hunt to make the final four. The bad news is that two teams appear to have forgotten the league is running at all.

“Beer Ahoy!” and “Off The Radar” are falling further and further behind as the weeks go by. They are now both over 25 points outside the last play-off position. In fact, “Off The Radar” didn’t play any make up matches last week, and only scored 3 points last night, and are averaging only 7½ points a week. They also have the lowest amount of bonus points overall (12). No prizes for guessing which team has the most. As you can see the rest of the teams are bunched up rather tightly. Only 7 points separate 2^nd from 6^th and a couple of matches could make all the difference… or bonus points…?

Highlighting some of the action yesterday, nothing stands out more than Jerry Solomon (“Bermuda Try Angles”). He gets a special mention here as somebody who literally put his body on the line – the red line on the tin that is. Late in the third game against Tom Pierce (“Scuttlebutts”), Jerry (accidently) launched himself face first into the tin. It was a messy consequence which resulted in a quick trip to the hospital for some stitches to the cut on his forehead. To make matters worse, Jerry lost that rally. But, he did take the match since he had won the first 2 games anyway. Jerry is well on the way to a full recovery – his head will heal fine, although he may wear the war wound for a while – however he will be taking a few weeks off for the sprained knee he suffered from the fall. We hope to see him back on court soon!

In a less bloody contest, Tom MacEachern (“Loose Cannons”) is trying his utmost to make the most out of each match. Since league matches are only 3 games without a tie-break, Tom is deciding to play every single point available. Last week, he played Tom Fabbri (“Get Some and Flop Some”) and won 2-1 with each game going 15-14. This week he played Tom Healy (“Beer Ahoy!”) and almost did exactly the same thing. He won 2-1, the first 2 going 15-14. Must be something in the name “Tom”.

Other close contests saw Ben Stone (“Get Some and Flop Some”) score a 2-1 victory over Allie Penz (“Off The Radar”), Brian Bartes (“Scuttlebutts”) picked up his second win of the season with a solid 2-1 win over Chuck Doyle (“Bermuda Try Angles”), and Bruce VandeVusse (“Naval Fluff”) scored his 3^rd 2-1 win of the summer and thereby handing Josh Slominski (“Lunge-Lob Split-Pants”) his first loss.

Time is running short – quickly. Players have until July 9 (inclusive) to complete all the matches. That’s 3 weeks. Better get swinging.