As I made my
way to the BAC down the I-696, I was thankful that it wasn’t a week earlier
when it snowed almost a foot. It would have covered up the pot-holes of death
that littered the highway. I felt like I was in a old-school video-car-game,
avoiding the bottomless pit obstacles, only to be confronted with a blinding
fog and rain once I neared Bloomfield Hills. Luckily I (and everyone else) arrived
unscathed, and I hoped my prize would be a nice shiny trophy with the words
“Farris Cup” inscribed on it.
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| Peter Logan (center) with the Farris family. BAC's Tom Walbridge is on the right. |
The past 3
years have been anything but successful. Comprehensive clobberings is an
understatement and as the day started off for the 10th Annual Farris Cup event,
it appeared as if we were in for another shellacking. Four matches in, and we
had lost them all 3-0.
The fifth
result was an improvement. Shail
Arora didn’t
win - although he very well could have.
When the game scores are as close as this: 12-10; 14-16; 11-9; 12-10 - just a
little luck can change the outcome. Shail didn’t have enough of it, but at
least the DAC had won one game!
Our first
match victory of the day came at the hands of Tom MacEachern who took care of his opponent 3-0. I wasn’t
surprised by this result. Tom, as I have mentioned before, has improved
substantially since winning the 3.0 club championships 8 months ago. He was in
control from the beginning, and didn’t let up.
Phil
Pitters on the other
hand also had control in the beginning of his match against Jeff Gembis. (Jeff is also a BAC member and
was representing the ‘enemy’ on this day!) Running his usual 20-court-sprints-per-rally self, Phil
scampered and crosscourt-drop-flicked his way to a 2-0 lead before his
McDonald’s based diet started to take over. Jeff began to wrest control and
take advantage of the tiring Phil to take the next 2 games. It didn’t look good
for the DAC, but somehow Phil mustered up enough energy to survive the 5th and
win it 11-8. Who said an extra Quarter Pounder wouldn’t help?
The DAC were
poised to take a third victory by the hands of Jim Stroh.
Okay, maybe ‘poised’ is a little exaggerated, but at 1 game all and leading in
the 3rd - and playing very well against BAC’s Mike Beauregard - Jim unfortunately tweaked his back and had to
retire. It was, however, a victory the DAC missed out on and seriously needed.
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| Kurt Streng and Andy Adamo |
When Paul Van Tol got so close (but no cigar!)
with a 2-3 loss, the BAC were only 1 victory away from retaining the Cup for a
fourth straight year. Derek
Aguirre kept our
candle flickering a while longer when he had to battle hard for his 3-1 over
the impressive 62-year
old Claude Mencotti. Claude should play the
Nationals...
Our hopes
were finally dashed in quick fire fashion. Andy Adamo
was in a no-win situation when his opponent graced the court. One could have
sworn it was J.C. himself and how does one beat the Almighty Savior? You simply
can’t. In actual fact, it was Kurt
Streng, who happened
to play like he was on a mission from God and he won 3-0 leaving the DAC
without a prayer.
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| Sante making another fashion statement! |
Not far
behind Kurt, Seth
Rogers scored a 3-0
win as well over Anthony
Fracchia and the
BAC had stamped their authority once
again. But, even though the Cup was lost, their was still some fight left in
us.
Sante
Fratarcangeli -
proudly displaying his all whites - was too fit for the skillful hands of Bob Mylod and won 3-1. Then Jed Elley stepped up to take on their club
champion Jon
Uffelman. To be
fair, Jon is carrying a knee injury and how he competed the way he did was
certainly admirable. Jed fell victim to Jon’s solid strokes to find himself 2-1
down, and had to fight his way through the 4th until he finally managed to move
the ball around the court more effectively to also win the 5th - albeit a
little more comfortably.
 |
| John Rakolta and Brad Steel |
The final
match of the day was also an entertaining affair. John Rakolta floated the ball around the
court and used his trademark crosscourt forehand lob-drop from the back corner
to frustrate Brad
Steel just enough.
The players swapped games and went deep into the 5th game. A couple of awful
and soft ‘lollypop’ serves threw Brad completely off as he clunked them into
tin giving John the breathing space he needed. He finished it off 11-9 for the
3-2 victory.
