Boasters League Semi
Finals~~
Now that’s what I’m talking about! Participation! An
excellent semi finals night with all the matches completed (almost all of them on the day) is precisely what the league is about. Team
members watching and cheering on their fellow team members, courts were full
all evening, the atmosphere fun-filled. Results were decided on court and not
on bonus points which is also the way it should be – each team had 12 players
turn up, except “Foss Nation” which
had 13.
“Butter Nutz” v “Wardogs”:
This was a “Butter Nutz” team that
really stepped up to the plate. Four matches were played early in the week and
they won all of them. It was a huge head start that they never came even close
to relinquishing. In one of the biggest ‘upsets’, Tom Bejin reversed a 0-3 heavy loss to Mike Nihem in round 5 into a rather valuable 2-1 victory for the “Butter Nutz”, winning the first game
15-14 and the third 15-13. Also reversing round 5 fortunes, Julie Vande Vusse turned a 1-2 loss
into a 3-0 win against Jim Miller –
the “Butter Nutz” were off and
running. Hard.
Andrew Spohn
continued the ascendancy taking Jon
Walton 3-0, Cathy Lysack has
found an extra gear with her new squash shoes and took care of Jay Poplawski 2-1 as well, and when Marc Lakin walked off the court a 2-1
winner over Sean Moran, the “Wardogs” were looking down a very long
barrel.
Not mathematically out of it, but with only 5 matches
remaining at that stage, a full comeback was looking highly improbable. The “Wardogs”, however, did do their best to
spoil the “Butter Nutz” party. Paul Ward was too good for Andy Adamo and picked up 3 much needed
points, and then James Stuntz kept
the dim candle burning just a little longer with his 3-0 win over Brian Schrage. But by the time Nick Cinqueranelli was finished with Colin Bayer, his 2-1 triumph had the “Butter Nutz” into the final. Once the
final match of the evening had been completed, it was “Butter Nutz” 40 to “Wardogs”
29.
“Winky-Dinks” v “Foss Nation”:
It’s never an easy task to arrange a suitable
sub for a finals game. Firstly, subs don’t get bonus points, and secondly, I
don’t want to find a player who is stronger than the player they are replacing.
But, I still want to keep it competitive. Unfortunately, “Winky-Dinks” needed 2 subs for the evening. It wasn’t all bad
though, one of them did manage to win. It wasn’t – nevertheless – the reason
the “Winky-Dinks” lost.
The loss can be contributed to the fact that the “Winky-Dinks” only won 4 matches of the
15. Outside of the sub (thank you Jim
Kelly!), the only 3 winning “Winky-Dinks”
were Kevin Prather, Scott Langenburg
and Niko Ahee- they all survived
their matches 2-1. Another seven “Winky-Dinks”
lost 1-2 and 4 of them 0-3. Clearly it was not a good night to be a part of that
team, but before you think that they didn’t have a chance from the beginning,
when these two teams played back in round 3, “Foss Nation” only beat them by 4 points overall – so if you look at
it from that perspective, the 42-28 final score could have (should have?) been a lot closer. “Winky-Dinks” captain Justin Winkelman was disappointed to
say the least, but be assured that his team will be back next season and no
doubt vying for the title again.
