WINKY-DINKS CHARGE INTO SECOND PLACE

Boasters League final round~~

There wasn’t much chance of any of the top six teams losing their play-off spot to any of the bottom three. The real only interest of round 9 was which team was going to end up second on the ladder and thus secure a first round finals pass. “Foss Nation” held that precarious position and headed into the last week with a slim 3 point cushion over “Winky-Dinks”. In the end, it was a non-event. “Winky-Dinks” did what they do best – accumulate bonus points. The picked up 11 of them – just as many points as what “Foss Nation” picked up in total. Add on the 7 matches they also played in which they won 4 of them, and the “Winky-Dinks” earned the bye quite easily.

“Butter Nutz” did not play the last round but picked up 19 points anyway over the week through make-up matches and their top billing for the finals is more than deserved. On the other end of the scale, “The Kampai Warriors” avoided the wooden spoon – barely – by jumping out of the cellar for the first time since round 4 and handing that unsavory award to “Busting Rails”.

Even though court usage is at an all time high, league play for the second half of the season felt like an all time low. Not quite, but almost:

• ·         63% of matches were played. It’s 11% lower than the first half. It actually surprised me that it is the same percentage of matches played as the second half of last season. It felt like less.
• ·         Round 1 had the most matches completed with 78%. Round 9 had the least with 33%.
• ·         “Butter Nutz” played the most matches – 75%. “Winky-Dinks” played 73%. Go figure the rankings…
• ·         “Busting Rails” played 52% of their matches. Once again, the standings reflect it.
• ·         “Winky-Dinks” were again king of the bonus points with 82. That’s 14 more than the next best “Butter Nutz”.
• ·         “The Kampai Warriors” only picked up 37 bonus points. That means only an average of 30% of their team turned up weekly.
• ·         9 players picked up all bonus points. In the first half, there were 18.
• ·         15 players played all 8 matches. That’s down from 27 in the first half. “Butter Nutz” had 5 of them. The “Wardogs” were the only team without a player that completed all of their matches.
• ·         No one played all of their matches and went through undefeated.
• ·         Bob Rogers picked up most points for the second half with 27. Exactly the same as the first half!
• ·         Jon Diewald (“Busting Rails”) scored 18% of his team’s total all by himself.
• ·         “Butter Nutz” scored the most points in any one round with 36 in round 7.
• ·         “Paddy’s Dropshots” scored the least amount of points in any one round with 6 in round 9.
• ·         The team that finished last in the first half scored 157 points. They would have made the play-offs with that total in the second half.
• ·         For the worst stat of the half, 5 players didn’t score any points at all. No matches, no bonus points. Ugh.

The first round of the finals presents us with a repeat of round 9 match-ups. Although by the amount of matches that were playe, it won’t feel like déjà vu for too many. “Vivio’s” v “Wardogs” had a score line of 11-16 with less than half the matches completed, and “Paddy’s Dropshots” v “Foss Nation” played even less and ended up with a score of 6 to 11. Let’s hops a few more matches can be completed next week, huh?