Boasters League
semi-finals~~
Give me second… just hopping up to my soap box for a minute…
The joys of organizing a league. Any league. When dealing
with as many people as we do here, it’s utterly impossible to keep everyone
happy. And I get that. Situations arise every season that are somewhat unique
and decisions need to be made – many times with little or no time to think it
over – and in the end somebody gets upset. Such is the nature of life.
Cries of rules changes come my way, but in reality the best
way to deal with each episode is to try to keep it as fair as possible which of
course doesn’t work depending on which side of the argument you’re on. I could
add rules to the league for every new event that pops up, but the rule book
would be like the NFL encyclopedia (Mark Montgomery already nicknamed me “Commissioner Goodell”!) and then who
would read them anyway? So in my opinion, keeping it simpler is better.
The finals of the boasters league runs over 3 weeks and
matches have deadlines for completion. We have run it this way for the 13 years
I have been here. And, having these finals run through March, a time of the
year where many are vacationing or are injured after a long season, makes it
often difficult to play before that deadline. Subs need to step in. This week,
we needed 8. That is lot more than normal believe it or not, but it’s 8 out of
68 players scheduled. So, in retrospect, it’s not that bad. I mention the subs
here because it did cause a little controversy this week and I received the
earful from all sides. I don’t have the ‘perfect’ substitute in the closet
waiting to go every time one is requested, especially for last minute requests.
This week was an anomaly. Is the system faultless? No, of
course not. In the utopian squash world, all players would turn up every week
and play at their scheduled time. But, Utopia is far away. And as I step down
from my soap box, keep in mind as well that some
of the onus does land on you – the player…
Preaching hat off, Blog hat on…
Winky-Dinks v Mongoose
Winky-Dinks were
under pressure this week to improve on their round 7 drubbing at the hands of Mongoose. Both team required 2 subs
each to fill in for them, and surprisingly, both teams did not pick up many
bonus points comparatively speaking – 11 for Winky-Dinks and only 10 for Mongoose.
Usually on finals night, I’d expect 14 to 15 at least.
Although this did end up closer than the previous match-up,
it wasn’t much prettier. Half a dozen bagels littered the Winky-Dinks score line, and for those mathematicians out there,
that’s an 18 point chasm to make up. Winky-Dinks
did pull back three 3-0 wins of their own, but it wasn’t nearly enough to make
up the difference.
The closest result of the evening was between Adam Longo (Winky-Dinks) and Shane Henry,
who was subbing for Mongoose. Adam
edged the first game 15-13, and the second game went one point closer. But at
14-all, Shane serving, he had the terrific idea of trying to hit it over Adam’s
head, which, at the glass half full attitude, he did. However, the glass half
empty viewpoint, he also hit it 10 feet out of court… Oops. Not to be deterred,
Shane redeemed himself in the third game, this time making sure his 14-all
serve was safely in, and taking the rally to save at least one game!
It wasn’t all doom and gloom for the Winky-Dinks. Some bright sparks included Julie Vande Vusse taking care of business – although it was tough
business – against David Zack for a
2-1 win and John Perkins doing the
same against Mike Petix. But in the
end, Mongoose was left standing tall. They are simply a good team. Final score:
38-31.
Butter Nutz v Vivio’s
This one came down to the final match. And we’ll get to that
in a minute. Subs also played a big part of this match up, Butter Nutz needing 3, Vivio’s
just 1… Bonus points could also play an important role here. Vivio’s picked up one more (13) than Butter Nutz (12), so in case of the
scores being equal, they held the tie-break.
In round 5, Vivio’s
won by 2 points, so obviously the teams are evenly matched. And they stayed
evenly matched through the evening, neither team establishing any sort of
significant lead, not more than 3 points separated them at any one moment. The
biggest turn around result from round 5 was Han Peng (Butter Nutz)
retaliating against Blake Roller (Vivio’s) who beat him 2-1 back then.
Han’s lessons must be paying off (how’s that for a cheap slap on my own back?)
as he took Blake to the cleaners for a 3-0 sweep. I need to thank Han for that
performance as Blake now is begging to get on my lesson calendar. Wednesday
evenings open up in a couple of weeks, Blake.
 |
| Kevin Thomas with his "Beer Point" Happy B'day! |
Shout out to the birthday boy Kevin Thomas who played his match early (winning 2-1) in order to
be able to celebrate his 30th birthday on Wednesday. But that didn’t
stop him from being the ultimate team player as he still managed (somehow) to
turn up to the DAC for his bonus point (and a beer, d’uh!). Not sure he
remembers doing so, luckily we had photo proof.
By the time Thursday morning rolled around, two matches were
left to be completed. One was already underway when I arrived for the day. Mike Rock (Vivio’s) and Ted Morris
who was subbing for the Butter Nutz
were locked at 1 game all and 9-8 in the third. At this point, the two teams
were deadlocked at 35 points each. A good spirited end to the match, Mike
walked off the 2-1 victor, an important win for Vivio’s because now the pressure would be placed squarely on the Butter Nutz.
The deciding match would be Zac MacVoy (Butter Nutz)
v Brendan Fossee (Vivio’s). Mike’s 3rd game
win meant that in order for the Butter
Nutz to win, Zac would have to take all 3 games. I only have 1 recorded
result between the 2 players, and Zac took that 2-1. Both players knew the deal
going into the court. The battle was on, I’m sure the captains were texting
wildly all day laying our game tactics to their players… And in a revenge
result, Brendan managed to stop the behemoth that is Zac with a 2-1 victory and
thus propel the unlikely Vivio’s to
a 39-37 win!
The win comes with a small asterisk, as protests regarding
the subs were launched. Did it change the outcome of the victory? I’ll let
everyone make their own opinion on that. It doesn’t change the fact that Vivio’s advance.
So we are all set for an interesting final. Mongoose played Vivio’s way back in round 1 where they actually lost 33-30. Still, too close to predict a winner for next week,
I’m pretty sure though that Mongoose
will need at least 2 subs which may hurt them bonus point wise.
