Pickleball Heat, on and off the court!
Sunday, August 7, 2022
The 3rd annual summer Mad Dogs pickleball tourney kicked off on a sunny, but super hot and humid day. Thankfully, trees and shade around the new Cariboo Hill venue provided some reprieve, along with 'Misty' the mister to provide a nice cooling station too (thanks Don!). The event was fully booked for our third year running but some late replacements were required so new entrants, Sandra and Adam, made their debuts as a team, while alumnus Carlos Alves, joined in too, leaving Henry, Georgina and Steve on the sidelines this time around. It was also great to have our visitor from Spain, Eva (BFF to Leanne) joining us as a tennis/padel player turned PB enthusiast for this one.
New to the format this season was a warm-up appetizer, in the form of a mini round robin (to 5 points) singles event, and Jason prevailed over his fellow teammate Vince for the top 2 finishes, while Ray, Leanne, Dharmesh and Eva rounded out the standings. On to the main event immediately following...
As per last year, we stayed with a round robin (rally point) format with 7 rounds facing all opponents, until lunch (Banh Mi subs!) were delivered for a much needed food/drink break. A 3-way tie atop the standings necessitated the 3rd tiebreak option (total points scored) to sort the seedings and thus, the top 8 rankings was set. The playoff round saw one opening upset as 6th seeded Team RED avenged a round-robin loss to 3rd seeded Team BLUE to advance to the semis, but Team BLUE turned the tables once again as they took the consolation final from them in the fated trilogy match.
Meanwhle, winless Team GREEN (the 8th seed) found their groove in the playoff rounds to put up some close battles and even bounced Team BLACK from the event with their first win, while Team ORANGE and Team BLACK were consistent performers in the middle of the pack. Team WHITE had their sole victory over Team GREEN in a 21-20 nail-biter but alas could not make a dent afterwards.
Team GREY and Team YELLOW, the top two seeds managed to climb the ladder to the finals, where Team YELLOW prevailed in the winner-take-all match to 15 (declining the option for a best-of-3 in this heat and 6th hour of play to that point). Gift certificates (at the local pub) were awarded and the Top 3 finishers look forward to seeing their names etched onto our recently unveiled (refurbished) trophy for the rest of eternity!
It was a long day, a hot day, but a fun day too, and many thanks to everyone for coming out... especially volunteers (Livia and Georgina) helping with logistics, and also Ian (Noodle) and Signet Financial Group for sponsoring the event with game balls and a budget boost. Dharmesh and Jason look forward to seeing you all next year! Until then, get back to practice!
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