Cross Border Challenge - September 8, 2018
I felt it was a little early in the season to run this
event, but every year it seems more difficult to find dates that suit both the
DAC and Windsor schedules. The Saturday after Labor Day was always going to be
iffy… kids are back at school, the summer is almost over, everybody is trying —
grudgingly — to adjust to the hectic fall and winter that will no doubt make us
wish it was already May once more.
Signups trickled in and eventually we did rustle up enough
enthusiastic brave-hearts to defend our Cross Border Challenge title - a
purposely beat up, trashed trophy that we have been proudly displaying in our
court area for the past 2 years. Fourteen members in all, spread out over 11
singles and 3 doubles matches and as it turned out, it was the closest result
between the 2 clubs ever - and we have been running this competition since
2005.
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| Tom MacEachern and Ryan Guthrie |
The DAC got on the board early with Tom MacEachern.
His opponent was a young man / lad / boy / junior / whippersnapper who we found
out was 18 but seriously I thought was barely out of primary school. I guess
when you get to my age, anybody under the age of 25 suddenly appears to me as a
wee child that hasn’t yet graduated to the front passenger seat of their
parent's car. Ryan Guthrie had a smooth technique, and was pretty darn
quick. Not exactly carrying a lot of extra meat on him, I am sure that without
his squash shoes on, he may have floated to the ceiling. Tom hung tough though,
and was the steadier of the two, executed some rather impressive pick-ups of
his own and out-lasted Ryan for a 3-0 win.
Colin Bayer, all the while, was battling it out
against Ron Funkenhuaser two courts down and struggled. Appearing to be
a little out of sync, Colin was a mixed bag of some accomplished squash and
some… let’s say “questionable” decisions. With up and down form -
sometimes in the same rally - it of course makes it awkward to gain any sort of
momentum. The match went to 5, Ron proved to be the more dependable of the pair
on the day and took the win to kick off Windsor’s campaign.
And so the trend for the singles matches was set. Keeping
to the script, neither club could assert themselves with any authority. We
would win a couple, Windsor would win a couple.
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| Jeff Frost and Trevor Charles |
Only 2 other matches went to 5. Jeff Frost had a
great start to his contest taking the first 2 games against Trevor Charles,
an opponent who couldn’t decide whether he was right handed or left handed.
Then the wheels fell off a little. Jeff, in his ultimate wisdom, somehow
managed to smack himself in the funny bone of his left arm with his own racquet
which threw him completely sideways. Maybe the numbness reached the
co-ordination nodes of his brain, and the 4th game was over before he could
sneeze, missing a handful of serves and looking totally dazed. Fortunately,
sanity (and feeling) returned for the 5th and Jeff pulled out the 11-8 win, now
able to actually laugh at his mishap.
Jay Bonahoom had the unenviable task of playing
against the Windsor pro Dave Morrish. Like (just about) all pros, Dave
has pretty acceptable racquet skills. If the ball is loose, if you give him
time, and even if you don’t, Dave has the ability (go figure) to punish you. He
has a great touch, can be awfully deceptive, knows what shot you are hitting
even before you step on court for the warm-up, and has years of experience to
boot. None of that perturbed Jay it seems. He did a phenomenal job. The one
thing that Jay did have on Dave was movement and Jay ran his behind off, forced
Dave short often, and took advantage well of open court opportunities.
Stretching the veteran pro to 5 games, I did still think - even at 8-all - that
Dave was in the driver’s seat based mainly on that experience. And it was the
case. Some subtle holds, clever flicks, and the match was suddenly over. But
Jay should be very happy with his performance.
From the 11 singles matches we had won 5 of them. It would
come down to the doubles.
The first doubles match of the day featured our own veteran
(non-pro) John-please-don’t-make-me-hit-a-backhand-Dunwoody
and one of our newest additions to the club Max Franklin, a top flight
club extraordinaire. They had a tough task against hard hitting Paul Gebrael
and Dave Morrish, an imposing combination of brute force and deft touch.
Dave is also a lefty, so they were dealing with 2 forehands here. John and Max
had their chances. They had glory in the palm of their hands before they
fumbled it and let it slip away. One sniff of that prestige was all it took for
them to choke on the fumes. The opportunity came at 2-1 up and 14-all in the
4th… a solitary match-ball that was there for the taking but turned out never
to be. The 5th game was close but they couldn’t recover as they went own 15-11.
Oh well, nothing a beer or two couldn’t solve!
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| Ian "'Murica!" Edwards and Rich Routley |
2 matches left - we had to win them both. First up was Ian
Edwards and Bruce Shaw against Carlyle D’Souza and Trevor
Charles. And this match could not have been closer. It was another
tug-o-war type contest, game for us, game for them, neither team asserting
themselves as dominate. Even as the 5th game stretched into the last few
rallies, and Windsor held 3 match-balls at 14-12 (and in turn, Cross Border
Challenge Title ball), Ian and Bruce somehow managed to frame a winner, squeak
out the next point as well to set up the sudden death exchange… It was a short
rally. Not an overly pretty rally. An “Oh!-I-hope-I-don’t-hit-the-tin” rally,
when suddenly Carlyle hit the tin. And with that we avoided disaster.
Now it was up to Tom MacEachern and the human Nacho,
David de la Torre. In their way was Ron Funkenhauser and Arnie
Funkenhauser. Winner takes all. It was all on the line. And our boys
stepped up big time. Both Tom and Dave have improved their doubles game
considerably over the past 12 months and they made their point. Solid first
game, was followed by a 15-14 win in the second - the only time in the match
where they looked pressured. The third was a stream-rolling performance, it
didn’t take long. A statement 3-0 win to finish the day and the DAC survived
the closest Cross Border in the 13 year history.
Score? DAC - 7 matches, 27 games won. Windsor - 7 matches,
25 games won. We scraped in by 2 solitary games. Of course, many of our players
claimed to be the one who pushed us over the top… Colin Bayer, Jay
Bonahoom, even John Dunwoody was trying to make his case. But, as we
all know, it was a team effort - every player contributed no matter how their
score line ended up. I would like to thank all of our members who made the
grandiose effort to play, and for the Windsor team and their pro Dave
Morrish for their always extremely welcoming hospitality. We hope to get
together again in April for the next episode… if our schedules can synchronize
at all! For the record, this was the 21st running of the event.
Overall, Windsor hold an 11 to 10 lead.
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| Go DAC Team! |
