SEMI FINALS DOMINATION

Boasters League Semi Finals~~

 

Now that’s what I’m talking about! Participation! An excellent semi finals night with all the matches completed (almost all of them on the day)  is precisely what the league is about. Team members watching and cheering on their fellow team members, courts were full all evening, the atmosphere fun-filled. Results were decided on court and not on bonus points which is also the way it should be – each team had 12 players turn up, except “Foss Nation” which had 13.

“Butter Nutz” v “Wardogs”: This was a “Butter Nutz” team that really stepped up to the plate. Four matches were played early in the week and they won all of them. It was a huge head start that they never came even close to relinquishing. In one of the biggest ‘upsets’, Tom Bejin reversed a 0-3 heavy loss to Mike Nihem in round 5 into a rather valuable 2-1 victory for the “Butter Nutz”, winning the first game 15-14 and the third 15-13. Also reversing round 5 fortunes, Julie Vande Vusse turned a 1-2 loss into a 3-0 win against Jim Miller – the “Butter Nutz” were off and running. Hard.

Andrew Spohn continued the ascendancy taking Jon Walton 3-0, Cathy Lysack has found an extra gear with her new squash shoes and took care of Jay Poplawski 2-1 as well, and when Marc Lakin walked off the court a 2-1 winner over Sean Moran, the “Wardogs” were looking down a very long barrel.

Not mathematically out of it, but with only 5 matches remaining at that stage, a full comeback was looking highly improbable. The “Wardogs”, however, did do their best to spoil the “Butter Nutz” party. Paul Ward was too good for Andy Adamo and picked up 3 much needed points, and then James Stuntz kept the dim candle burning just a little longer with his 3-0 win over Brian Schrage. But by the time Nick Cinqueranelli was finished with Colin Bayer, his 2-1 triumph had the “Butter Nutz” into the final. Once the final match of the evening had been completed, it was “Butter Nutz” 40 to “Wardogs” 29.

“Winky-Dinks” v “Foss Nation”: It’s never an easy task to arrange a suitable sub for a finals game. Firstly, subs don’t get bonus points, and secondly, I don’t want to find a player who is stronger than the player they are replacing. But, I still want to keep it competitive. Unfortunately, “Winky-Dinks” needed 2 subs for the evening. It wasn’t all bad though, one of them did manage to win. It wasn’t – nevertheless – the reason the “Winky-Dinks” lost.

The loss can be contributed to the fact that the “Winky-Dinks” only won 4 matches of the 15. Outside of the sub (thank you Jim Kelly!), the only 3 winning “Winky-Dinks” were Kevin Prather, Scott Langenburg and Niko Ahee- they all survived their matches 2-1. Another seven “Winky-Dinks” lost 1-2 and 4 of them 0-3. Clearly it was not a good night to be a part of that team, but before you think that they didn’t have a chance from the beginning, when these two teams played back in round 3, “Foss Nation” only beat them by 4 points overall – so if you look at it from that perspective, the 42-28 final score could have (should have?) been a lot closer. “Winky-Dinks” captain Justin Winkelman was disappointed to say the least, but be assured that his team will be back next season and no doubt vying for the title again.

So we have “Butter Nutz” v “Foss Nation” for the all the marbles. These two teams played in round 7 with “Butter Nutz” coming out on top quite convincingly 36-16. From that, you’d have to say that the “Butter Nutz” are heavy favorites going in. Matches start at 5pm – come down and cheer on / support the competitors! Can “Foss Nation” defy the odds?