NICK AT NIGHT KEEP ROLLIN’

Boasters League Quarter Finals~~

Amazing how things change once the finals come around. Suddenly there is a level of commitment and interest not seen during the regular season, players actually going out of their way to get matches done, making an extra effort to get that bonus point (mostly), captains crunching the numbers, calculating their mathematical chances, communication amongst each team increases 100-fold, I’m receiving e-mails about future possible opponents… it’s certainly refreshing to see. I also think that if this level of dedication was demonstrated through the season, who is in the finals may be different…

I did hear one of the captains of one of the eliminated teams last night mention that if only 2 of his team members turned up twice on a Wednesday, they would be in the play-offs. That’s all it can take. Every point counts. Even that random bonus point that was missed from round 2 for example. But that’s all water under the bridge now.

For the teams that extended their season at least one more week, this is what happened:

Nick at Night v Foss Nation

Can anyone say “bonus points”? If anything was going to be Nick at Night’s Achilles heel during the play-offs, it would be their ability (or lack thereof) of collecting bonus points. During the season, the most they picked up in any one week was 9. But come play-off time… and last night they accumulate 13! Remarkable! Foss Nation matched them on this count, which is great news since the winner of this match-up would now be decided on court.

I did predict a Nick at Night victory this week, and based on win percentage over the season, they won 18% more often than what Foss Nation did. However, of the 16 matches played (out of 17) the two teams split the wins 8 apiece. The difference being was how many 3-0 wins one team had over the other.

In arguably the most exciting match of the evening, Tom MacEachern (Foss Nation) had his work cut out against Riley English (Nick at Night). Riley has beaten Tom 6 times in a row leading up to this encounter, the last time Tom actually won was in October of 2017. So a mental hurdle was securely in place, but Tom wasn’t having any of it. Although after the first game, he would have been getting the repeating familiar feeling of déjà vu all over again as Riley did his usual sprint from corner to corner, to mezzanine, to parking garage, to keg, to Tom’s drop-shot. Somehow, it didn’t discourage Tom terribly much and he took the next 2 games (was the 3^rd 15-14..?) and ended his losing streak. It was a reversal of the 3-0- pounding Tom took back in round 7.

There were 3 other reversals that took place. Renee Fershee (Nick at Night), took sweet revenge on her round 7 loss to Peter McGrath (Foss Nation) last night with a 3-0 win. Brendan Fossee (Nick at Night) followed very closely in Renee’s footsteps and did exactly the same thing against John Markus (Foss Nation). Turning 1-2 losses into 3-0 wins is in reality a 4 point turnaround. Makes all the difference. The third reversal went Foss Nation’s way this time, with Niko Ahee avenging his 1-2 round 7 loss to Tripp Kennedy winning 2-1 this time.

As I said earlier, it wasn’t the amount of wins overall that made the difference here, but the amount of 3-0 wins. Nick at Night had 7 of them. That’s a 21-0 deficit that is devilishly difficult to overcome no matter what way you look at it. Of the 8 wins that Foss Nation secured, they only had two 3-0 scores, it simply was not enough. Nick at Night keep their engine pumping at full speed and move onto the semifinals with a resounding 42-32 win.

Butter Nutz v Wardogs

So did bonus points make a difference in this one? Well, it didn’t exactly help the Wardogs as they managed to collect only 9 of them. That’s low for a final, but I suppose luckily for them, Butter Nutz didn’t take full advantage of it as they only picked up 11 of their own. If they could have hauled in 14 or 15, they would have put the result to bed early.

This turned into a struggle for the Wardogs from the get-go anyway. Four matches were played early and Butter Nutz won 3 of them, so by the time the quarter-final had officially started, Wardogs were already 4 points back. As it turned out this night for them, wins were difficult to come by, especially of the 3-0 variety. They had only one. Jordan Dean took care of business against Matt Peleman, with a much needed but awfully rare 3 game victory. On the other side of the field, 3-0 wins for the Butter Nutz weren’t exactly coming in thick and fast either, as they only mange to record two of them. However, Butter Nutz were on the positive side of the 2-1 results a lot more often.

Score reversals from the round 7 match-up… Peter Ulbrich (Butter Nutz) avenged his 1-2 loss to David Pontes (Wardogs) taking this one 2-1 – also making it the first time Peter has beaten David in 5 tries. (Must be those lessons…?) Scott Beals (Butter Nutz) shook off his 0-3 loss to John Perkins (Wardogs) with a 2-1 win here – this is also the first time Scott has bested John on the squash court – perfect timing I suppose! And Max Franklin (Wardogs) managed to get even with Jason Currie (Butter Nutz) winning 2-1 on this occasion, Jason doing his best Riley English impression of running from corner to keg to locker room to BAC to Max’s backhand rail… and then losing.

As the Thursday sun up (an hour late again), we still did not have a clear winner. With 3 matches still to be completed, Butter Nutz held the advantage but Wardogs were mathematically still within reach. Although that reach was at the very tips of their fingers, and wouldn’t take much to have it be completely out of their grasp. In the spotlight first was Josh Gershonowicz (Butter Nutz) and Joey Gaylord (Wardogs). Josh beat Joey 2-1 in round 7, Josh’s only win in 4 attempts. Joey needed to win 3-0 to keep his team’s hopes alive, but none of his victories over Josh in the past were 3-0. It certainly didn’t help matters for Joey that he also carried a dodgy knee into the match. Taking nothing away from Josh, the result could very well have ended the same way, but Joey couldn’t keep up with the pace required and had to regrettably bail half way through the second game. Josh’s 3-0 win gave Butter Nutz the unassailable lead and the ticket into the next round. Final score: Butter Nutz 38 to Wardogs 26.

Semi Finals… We have Nick at Night v Winky-Dinks. A round 3 match-up had the Winky-Dinks on top 34-29. All but 2 matches were played, but neither team picked up many bonus points so that could be a factor. I’m leaning Winky-Dinks here, but Nick at Night are clearly no push-overs. Should be close either way.

Then we have Butter Nutz v Mongoose. Back in round 4 Mongoose squeaked out a 31-30 victory. All but 3 matches were played and all but 2 results were 2-1. On this occasion and Butter Nutz picked up 3 more bonus points. I’m predicting a Mongoose win here as well, but I also think they will win by a greater margin – maybe by 6 or 7 points. Of course, now that I have said that, it won’t happen.