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!