2018 DAC Doubles Club
Championships
Doubles activity is up. Not exactly a news-flash to those
who are playing since the experience of attempting to arrange a convenient
match time with 3 others is made difficult enough when coordinating everyone’s most important schedules, but then
discovering the time you have decided on is already booked… it can test the
patience of the most mild-mannered Dalai Lama. (I’m sure that’s why he doesn’t
play.) It also tests the limit of my in-box and delete button as I am privy to
most of the e-mail chains that bounce around endlessly. Do we need a second doubles court…? A record
breaking 36 teams entered this year’s doubles club championships and with that
we could expand the event into 4 categories. Let’s see who picked their
partners wisely…
Doubles C
Joe Moran and Ken Katz. Need I say more? What would
the Doubles C draw be without them? It may drop the average age somewhat, but
you would be hard pressed to find a pairing in this category that knew the
angles better, knew all the tricks in the book better, and knew all the catch
phrases to “Howdy-Doody”. The first time the Moran / Katz team graced the C final was way back in 2010 where
they lost to Andy Housey and Anthony Fracchia. Another loss in the
2011 final, and then a reversal of fortune in 2012 when they finally picked up
their first title. Four years later they repeated the win, and now once again
in 2018, they were vying for their third. To reach the final this year, Moran / Katz won the 2 matches 3-0 and
3-1. On paper (at least), it certainly appeared the trifecta was well within
reach.
Trying desperately to deny the veterans would be first time
finalists Justin Winkelman and Tom Bejin. I’m not sure how well versed
Justin and Tom are with Howdy-Doody, but luckily it wasn’t a skill that was
needed against Curt Pedersen and Bruce Shaw in their first match. I
think Curt and Bruce may have had the edge on that anyway. It was a royal
shoot-out between the teams with Justin and Tom re-holstering their smoking
racquets as the last team standing 3-2. It must have given them a boost in
confidence, since the semifinal against Steve
Murphy and David Pontes was – I
am told – tough, but Winkelman / Bejin
held strong to take all 3 games.
After a 753 e-mail train, a time was set for the final. Katz / Moran would have to rely heavily
on their experience although both have be known to hustle down the ball pretty
well too. It was surely the tactic that Winkelman
/ Bejin wanted to employ – Make. Them. Move. But as it turned out, Ken and
Joe held the upper hand from the get go. Nothing was going to stop them from
grabbing their third title and they swept the match 3-0!
(Just a quick side note. We didn’t get Howdy-Doody in
Australia when I was growing up. We did have “Skippy the Bush Kangaroo” which was our version of “Lassie”. An outback Australian family
adopted a kangaroo for a pet and apparently could understand it perfectly. It
saved Timmy from drowning in the well every other week.)
Doubles B
Where Ken Katz
and Joe Moran have all the squash
experience that mere mortals only can imagine, Jeff Rogers and brother John
have virtually none. What they do have is very quick feet. And an endless
lung capacity which can be attributed to their days as hot-shot soccer players
not too long ago. If the DAC had ‘soccer club champions” Jeff and John would be
legends. So, there is only one way to get experience and that is by actually
playing, and what better place to start than the B division of the club
championships.
Based on their speed and athleticism, I seeded them second.
Turns out I wasn’t far off. Doubles is a big court to cover and knowledge of
angles is of paramount importance. I thought Jeff and John may struggle against
the older, more experienced teams but it was not to be. Without dropping a
game, the Rogers boys skipped all the way to the final, looking like they were
just going for a relaxing stroll through the park.
The other half of the draw was more hotly contested. The Ted Morris and Jon Walton team were in my opinion the team to beat. They had
racked up some decent wins over the season and their confidence should have
been high. A dangerous first round had them up against last year’s doubles C
winners – Jim Stroh and Sean Moran. Jim and Sean are one
tournament wonders – the doubles club championships is the only time the pair
dust off their squash racquets. They may have wished they dusted them off a
little sooner this year. Almost pulling out the upset, but falling few deep
breaths short, they couldn’t see the match through the 5th game as
Ted and Jon scraped in with a 3-2 victory.
In my mind, I was pretty sure they were going to win the
next round too against Al Iafrate
and John Roarty - both of whom are
relatively new to the doubles court. And in reality, they should have done so.
But Al and John ‘stole’ a victory that no doubt left the Morris / Walton team questioning their sanity. Ted and John won the
first game, and were up in games 2, 3 and 4 each time by 5-6 points until they
reached 13, only to lose each of them 15-14. A tough pill to swallow.
Al and John were unlikely finalists, not the Rogers team cared.
It was all the same to them. Jeff and John continued on their merry way and
took another matter-of-fact 3-0 win to the bank, cashing it in for a club
champion title!
Doubles A
The biggest of the draws, 12 teams were competing for the
honors. And being the biggest, it was also the most competitive. Neither of the
teams that reached the final had it straightforward, it very easily could been
a completely different foursome in the end.
The first finals pair – David
“Nacho Libre” - “El Chapo” – “El Guapo” de la Torre / Zac MacVoy trashed talked their way
through a 3-1 win over Dane Fossee
and Scott Beals in round 1; somehow
managed to work out a 3-2 victory over the number one seeded pairing of Paul Ward and Mike Petix; and I can’t imagine the verbal back and forth that was
going on and even if I did I surely wouldn’t be able to print it, during the
semifinal against John Mann and Colin Bayer. John and Colin got the
early jump and had a 2 games to love lead before the lefty-righty combo of de la Nacho-Chapo-Guapo Torre / MacVoy came
storming back to shanghai the next three. Could they win one more and go all
the way?
Their opponents would be Joey Gaylord and Kevin
Thomas. Joey and Kevin are a decent team but can be vulnerable depending on
their motivation levels. That level maybe wasn’t at maximum in their first
match against Manny Tancer and Dave Walker – who are by no means
pushovers and have a ton of experience between them – and Joey and Kevin were
extremely fortunate no to be kissing their club championship aspirations
bye-bye then and there. No doubt they were squirming at the end, but a 15-13 in
the 5th win saw them skulk past and into the semifinals. The kick in
the pantaloons pepped them up for that encounter and they were not taking any
chances. Shail Arora and Charles Roby could not repeat their
quarter final 3-2 performance over JC
Tibbitts and Mike LoVasco and
were dispatched in 3 straight games.
A fascinating finals match-up: Gaylord / Thomas v de la
Torre / MacVoy. There is one recorded result between the two teams and the
mental edge goes to Joey and Kevin who won that 3-0 just over 1 month ago. But luckily
Dave and Zac have short memories. Or maybe they don’t and they were using it as
motivation? Or, maybe a couple of post-match beers were on the line which would
spur on the most passive of individual to greater heights? Whatever the inspiration
was, Dave and Zac were extremely driven to get their names into the DAC record
books. They succeeded in their quest and took the match 3-1, creating the
biggest upset of this year’s club championships!
Doubles Open
This rivalry is not that old, but it seems to have morphed
into a life of its own. Once again we were left with 2 teams standing that have
both won this prestigious sports title and clearly (in their minds at least) is
equivalent - if not greater – than Wimbledon, the Stanley Cup, the World Soccer
Cup, and the Fossee summer annual back garden ‘bags tournament’ combined.
Jed Elley and Ryan Covell (who have nicknamed
themselves “Jed-Co”, a lovely couple’s
combo on par with “Brangalina”, or “Kimye”, or “TomKat”) are the current
defending club champions but probably still can taste the sourness of their
2016 finals loss that catapulted their opponents into unlikely stardom and
kicked off the now dastardly tug-of-war between them.
 |
| The two teams staring each other down... |
Those opponents? George
Kordas and John (JR) Rakolta.
(Who have nicknamed themselves the “Blue
Chips” for reasons I still can’t understand.) The Blue Chips took down
Jed-Co in the infamous final of 2016 where JR literally sacrificed life and
limb for the victory and was lucky to escape without having to visit the ER for
multiple incidents. Jed-Co handed out some revenge last year when they beat the
Blue Chips 3-1 on the way to their title, but it was only in the semifinal. A
finals victory would make it all the sweeter.
Both teams dropped just 1 game to reach the final. Reports
and comments were coming in from both teams prior to the big match…
Snippets overheard from Vikram Chopra after their semifinal
loss to the Blue Chips are pure hearsay and relayed to me from George, so there
is probably some self-aggrandizing editing going on, but who am I to judge?: "Happy (tears) because of what Peter
and I did coming to the Final Four," Chopra said "playing on a world class stage against Kordas and Rakolta—
reppin' our community and the city of Detroit, Sad (tears) because I know this
was it. The Chips have dismantled us, similar to what they did to
Haggarty and Eugenio in 16’ before the Legendary Blue Chip championship....
just thinking about what we could have done better, but sometime you just have
to tip your hat to the champs.” Peter
Logan’s (Vik’s partner) comments to me didn’t exactly echo the same
sentiments. Just sayin’.
Ryan Covell on the other hand was more focused in the upcoming
contest rather focusing on past successes. Recognizing that the death-defying
tactic of planting yourself on court as a human-obstacle paid huge dividends
for JR in 2016, Ryan has called upon the same approach for himself this time
around (and I am quoting directly with a slight edit): “My prediction is a JedCo victory and somebody will get tagged with an
full swing overhand and the ball hits them right in the behind*. It’ll probably
be me, but that’s the price of victory. So go ahead fellas. Hit me right in the
behind*. I’m ready!!” Ummm.. yeah, Ryan. Whatever rocks your boat I
suppose. I did reply to that stating that we will have a spare ball on standby
in case we cannot retrieve the first one. (* word edited).
 |
| The Champs! Jed-Co all smiles! |
It was on. The buildup was
complete, now it was to be seen which team could step up and match their
rhetoric. In front of a decent crowd itching for fireworks, the two teams put
up what we all expected them do – a high quality doubles display, and hearty
discussions on the rules of doubles squash. On this day though, Jed and Ryan
were clearly on a seek and destroy mission. A tight first game that fell Jed-Co’s
way was all that team needed. The rest was waiting for the inevitable. At no
time in the next 2 were the Blue Chips threatening any sort of comeback, they
were on the receiving end of a good ol’ fashioned whoopin’. The constant
pressure applied to them was too great to overcome with Jed-Co’s court coverage
and clever angles. The 3-0 win ended their misery somewhat and gave the
reigning champs, Jed and Ryan an awfully satisfying victory. Congrats guys! I
am happy to report that the spare ball was not needed, although Ryan – it was
reported – was practicing hard the day before and was getting a ‘feel’ the possible future pain...
(Photos courtesy of George Kordas facebook account).
