MONGOOSE MAKE A CHARGE

Boasters League round 5~~

Mongoose have decided that enough is enough, it’s time to grab this thing by the scruff of the neck and run away with it. Captain Paul Huth is in fine form once again with his very effective non-subtle communication techniques, a tactic that other team captains may want to investigate! Whatever he is saying, it’s working. Mongoose stormed ahead this week with an inspiring 42 points, aided with the fact they also picked up a season’s best (so far) 14 bonus points last night. That’s plants them 28 points ahead of second place Butter Nutz… a significant lead.

Winky-Dinks also put up a decent showing. They picked up 38 points from last week, including 13 bonus points and were round 5’s biggest mover jumping from 7^th to 5^th. As always the team that has the bye suffers the most and this week it was Nicker Ballers that endured that fate. However, even though they dropped from 5^th to 7^th, they picked up 14 points in make-up matches which is actually not a bad effort. As expected, the 5 teams that have had the bye so far are ranked 5^th to 9^th, so – putting it in perspective - Winky-Dinks – are looking in respectable shape. Not sure they can catch Mongoose though.

It was a reasonably active night, the keg was destroyed in quick fashion (with help of the handball players of course!) but we didn’t see John Mann (Over Served) devour any amount of chicken wings which was strange. John did, however, eat up Mike Petix (Mongoose) on court with a 2-1 win, maintaining his undefeated status, although I only have 2 results from him so far. Blake Roller (Mongoose) is counting himself fortunate to get away with a 2-1, 15-14 in the 3^rd win over Sam Fogleman (Over Served), a decent quality contest with plenty of scrambling rallies and with a score line like that, the result could have easily been reversed.

Brian Ellison (Over Served) was his usual entertaining self against Paul Huth (Mongoose) as he literally throws himself around the court. His never-say-die mentality comes out in the form of full body diving. That didn’t save him from winning the 3^rd game, but he still took the match 2-1. For an encore, Brian hoped on court with a young guest who is a top US junior. No amount of diving helped him here. He lost that one.

Other matches worth pointing out… Han Peng (Nick at Night) is now 3-for-3 after taking down Josh Gershonowicz (Butter Nutz) 2-1 in their first ever recorded score; Jay Bonahoom (Winky-Dinks) picks up his first win of the season with a 2-1 victory over Paul Ward (Wardogs); Matt Peleman (Vivio’s) scored a tough 2-1 triumph over Schuyler Hamill (Foss Nation); and Brady Savage (Foss Nation) is also yet to lose this season after another win, a 2-1 take down of Peter Huthwaite (Vivio’s).

The league picks up again in 2 weeks time as we welcome the professional women players into the club for the DAC Pro Squash Classic. This gives you time to get some make-up matches in, and make sure you are well on your way to that 5 match minimum threshold. Nine players have already reached the mark, but we have 5 players still yet grace us with their presence. (Given, a couple of those players are currently injured, so they are excused!)

Make sure you make the effort to watch the pros next week. The women will show us all how it’s supposed to be done!

DECENT TURNOUT FROM ALL TEAMS

Boasters League round 4~~

It was a busy night on the league courts – I finally crept out the door just before 8pm last night and I believe 3 of the 4 courts were still in use. That’s a great sign and hopefully a trend that continues. Even better, was that the turnout was pretty evenly spread amongst the 8 playing teams. With the exception to Vivio’s who had the bye, all teams picked up between 23 and 29 points. Because of the parity, the standings this week weren’t all that affected (as in no one separated themselves) … except for the idle Vivio’s of course. They picked up 7 points in makeup matches, but dropped from second spot last week all the way to 6^th this week. That sounds terrible, but putting it into context, of the 4 teams that have had the bye so far, Vivio’s have the best score.

Mongoose have increased their lead to 15 points atop the ladder, Butter Nutz take over second spot, with Wardogs making the biggest move this week from 5^th to 3^rd. All at the expense of Vivio’s. But with all the teams pretty well bunched together, I expect the standings to be shuffling around rather regularly. As far as bonus points go this week, all teams picked up between 9 and 12 of them with Over Served being the outlier with just 7. Over Served has the least overall as well. They are last.

Some noteworthy results worth mentioning… John Mann (Over Served) somehow managed to beat Mack Gembis (Butter Nutz) 2-1, with the last two games being 15-14. John was delighted that it was a boasters league match and not a best-of-5 box match as he very much doubted he could have kept up the pace any longer. Mack for his part, went straight back on court to run some more.

Gordie Maitland (Nicker Ballers) took down Mike McCuish (Foss Nation) 3-0 which on the surface doesn’t sound overly exciting, but according to Gordie, he pulled out his world class backhand volley drop that was clearly unreturnable, even for pros. I suggested we film it and out it on You Tube for all the world to see, for no doubt it would instantaneously go viral, but he didn’t want to divulge his secret weapon to the world and future opponents.

Other commendable efforts to report…: Dewey Steffen (Nicker Ballers) picks up his first win of the season, taking care of business 2-1 against Ted Morris (Foss Nation); Andrew Peleman (Nick at Night) overcame the determined John Stelter (Wardogs) with just a little too much speed and took the 2-1 victory; and Jon Diewald (Winky-Dinks) gets his second win of the season, pinching 2 of 3 games from Kyle Keppen (Mongoose). So happy was Jon with his win, he rewarded himself with a new racquet!

Round 5 next week (yes – that’s half way through!) and then a week off as the Women’s Pro Squash Classic comes to town. Time to make up some missed matches,

numbers are picking up, but we still have 13 players yet to step on court. That’s down significantly from the 29 last week, (yay!) but this should be zero.

And any predictions on the Lions v Giants this weekend? I am still riding on the Lions wagon so I think they’ll win, but he wheels are starting to wobble a little. A must win as far as I see it…