Blitz Tournament – October 11
Not a bad
showing for the first Blitz Tournament of the season. We had 20 participants
which made it easy to split them into four equally sized groups, but what
wasn’t so simple was - in some cases - to assign the correct handicaps. We
welcome all new players with open arms and a couple of beers (or wines!) into
every squash event we run. However, without knowing their standard,
handicapping turns into hopeful (doubtful!) guesswork.
It’s all fun
and games. I make a point to apologize before the tournament starts for any
handicap that I get wrong. My aim is to have every single game end up 15-14. In
my mind, the sudden-death rally proves the handicap as being correct.
Unfortunately, a couple of the round-robin results deserved that apology...
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| Julie VandeVusse, John and Kelly Maher |
There were a
few games that did get to the 15-14 score line. New member and new player Kelly Maher had three of them. Alas, she lost all of
them too! I’ll take a pat on the back for her handicaps though, since I had
never even met her before, let alone know what standard she was. Her husband -
John - also joined in of the fray. John is part of the DAC basketball league
(and consequently was the tallest amongst us!) but he too failed to get past
the round robin stage. I am sure they enjoyed the evening and camaraderie and
we’ll be seeing them again very soon.
Of the four
round robin groups, only one of them needed to draw straws to see who would
advance to the knock out stage. With Sante
Fratarcangeli
winning that group with 3 victories, we had three other players tied for second
with 2 wins apiece. Chip
McDaniel had to win
his final match of the group against one of the new squash players / members Nick Cinqeranelli to secure his finals berth, but
Nick decided to play spoiler. Chip’s loss forced him to take part in the
‘lottery’ with Julie
VandeVusse and Anil Kathuria, and he didn’t fare any
better with his straw pulling. “Lady Luck” shined on Julie instead.
Julie’s
quarter final match was against 2-time Blitz Tournament winner Josh Slominski. Taking a 10 point head-start,
Julie quickly extended it to 12 before Josh got his act going. He had very
little room for error, but he managed to steadily close the gap. That didn’t
stop Julie from reaching 14 first and earning a hand-full of match balls. Josh
had to stay error-free and he did to even it up for the sudden-death showdown
in which Julie actually had the upper hand in that rally. Regrettably, her
game-ending “winner” shaved the top of the tin. Josh advanced.
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| Brett Torgler and Dino DeMare |
The fourth
new face we had playing was Dino
DeMare. Dino has
practiced hard in the short time he has taken up squash and has improved
quickly. In the round robin, Jason
Trombley got the
rough end of the pineapple when I gave Dino 6 points head-start in their match,
a handicap that in hindsight should have been reversed. Dino won 15-2. Sorry
Jason!
Dino finished
second in his group and met up against Sante in the knock-out round. Going by
his form in the first 4 games, I only handed him an 8 point head start. Even
though the rallies were relatively competitive, it wasn’t quite enough, and
Sante ended Dino’s run with a 15-12 victory.
Sante’s semi
final was against Josh. Josh was handed 4 points for the handicap, must to the
chagrin of Sante who insisted 3 was fairer. After handing out a tissue, I told
Sante to play harder. He did. The entertaining game ended with Sante taking the
15-10 win, and me then wondering why I didn’t give Josh 8 points head start
instead! I of course kid, Sante has made a great effort lately to develop his
game and it is showing.
On the top
side of the knock-out draw, the quiet spoken Phil Pitters quietly took care of Margi Scholtes before tackling Paul Ward
in the semi final. It was a straight up game - that is, no handicap, start 0-0.
Both of these guys run. Their retrieval abilities are not just engaging, they
are often humorous too as they run themselves so far out of position but still
somehow manage to reach the next ball. Phil squeezed out the game 15-13,
huffing and puffing hard as he exited the court for his 2 minute rest before
the final.
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| Phil Pitters and Sante Fratarcangeli |
Pitters v
Fratarcangeli. Once again, I decided the handicap should be zero. Once again
Sante protested, and while I once again reached for the tissue box, Sante then
accepted the decision, put his head down and went to work. As tired as Phil
was, he still did his darndest to cover the court as inefficiently as possible,
no matter how effective he turns out to be. How he picks-up some shots when he
looks dead and buried is a sight to behold! Sante though, was ready, and
remained prepared for the balls to keep bouncing back. As it turned out, Sante
was (half) right. I should have given a handicap - but to Phil. We didn’t get
to see the dream sudden-death rally for the final, Sante denied Phil the
opportunity to get to 14 as he took the game 15-12. Congratulations to my
pink-shorted friend, winner of this season’s first Blitz!
The 3rd / 4th
playoff had Josh take a 6 point handicap over Paul. Josh played well to win
that battle 15-13 and claim 3rd prize.
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| Say "Cheeeeze"! |
