Sonoma Tournament!

Sunday, June 10, 2018 (Court Day #157)
Sonoma Wine Country Games • Men’s Doubles

I woke up at 5:45 AM, 15 minutes before my alarm. I’d tried to go to sleep especially early but after fighting a sinus infection for a couple days, I had another coughing fit and got up at 11:11 to try and not disturb my sleeping wife too much. I woke up with lots of congestion buildup, but after more coughing and blowing my nose, it was cleared out mostly. A Mucinex, some water, and I was on the road.

Arrival

After two hours of driving I arrived at Santa Rosa at 8:15 a.m. Lo and behold, I pulled up in the parking lot next to our own Kent. John pulled up a few minutes later across the median directly in front of my car. After I mentioned that I forgot to pack pickle juice, John offered some pickles and I helped myself to a half-dozen slices as well as one of his “leg cramps” pills, just in case. After the last tournament, I didn’t want to take any chances!

Yes, that’s my finger in the upper right! Oops!

I went and registered and received my goodie bag containing a T-shirt, some local sight-seeing brochures, and a customized rubber wristband.

We checked the posted brackets. We’d be playing in the first round. (Santa Cruz local David Black and partner David Wight had a bye to start.) What’s odd is that they bundled 3.0 (our level) and 3.5 and 4.0 all into one bracket. John told me that we were the only 3.0 team. If we won our match, we’d move on to play David Black‘s team.

Things were crowded and busy with lots of players and spouses and friends milling about. It was men’s doubles only today, so the women were idle, but I heard no complaints. After all, the men were idle on the day of women’s doubles.

A lot of pickleballers!

There were no courts open so John and I warmed up outside the courts by dinking on the sidewalk and volleying back-and-forth. 

Kevin and his wife Bev sitting and waiting for his next match with Kent.

I learned that it took Kevin and his wife Bev 5 1/2 hours from Santa Cruz to Santa Rosa. Bev said they spent much of the time going 25 miles per hour. Ouch! I got the better deal driving early on a Sunday morning!

The First Match

John and had our first match (best of three games) against a man named Gary Wong and his partner Armando Leigh. Both looked fit.  Gary is around 5’11′, Armando is about 5’8”. Gary had a good command of spin and both served well. With Gary, given the opportunity—bam—it was sideways off the court, out of reach!

It was a good back and forth game, but they pulled away at the end and won 11-7. The second game was even more lopsided and we lost 11-2. While both sides determined which one opponent was the weaker partner, but they were doing a better job targeting that player than we were—or at least, they were doing a better job than I was. John might have been doing better than me. Regardless, I’d serve and it’d come back to John. John’d serve and it’d come back to John.

Between Games

Terry Long and his wife Karen drove all the way up to cheer on everyone and see friends play. In a button down shirt, I didn’t recognize Terry at first!

Karen (left) with unseen dog in tow, Terry (white hat) and Beth Black look on as her husband David played this first match.

After our match, John wisely checked with the organizers to find out who we’d be playing against. They told him that the losers on a particular court would be our opponents. We went over to scope our our competition. Holy crap. Both teams were really, really good. There were repeated awesome rallies in that match. One of the players—Scott, I later learned—hit an Erne shot. I talked to the random man next to me about it and he said he (Scott) had already done one previously in the match! (I’ve never even done one ever!) Eventually, one team lost in two games, 11-9, 12-10. Just about as close as you can get. Dean correctly predicted the winners, a team from Palo Alto, I think he said. The losing team (Eddie and Scott) was local to the tournament, from Santa Rosa. We expected that our consolation match would be a complete takedown—we were going to get clobbered. John said that if we managed to score 5 points, it would be a moral victory.

David Black and his partner David Wight played against Gary and Armando who beat us. It was a much closer match than ours—11-5, 5-11, 11-9—but Gary and Armando advanced while the “Black & Wight” team dropped into the consolation round.

I figured that I’d video record John and my second match. Unfortunately, while I had battery and room on storage card, I didn’t have a paperclip to hang up the camera. Drat. Next time.

Kent and Kevin had a good day.

The Second Match

Eddie and Scotty. Eddie was about 6’2″ and built like a linebacker. He could have been chiseled out of stone: fit, trim, muscular. Scott was also tall; not quite as tall and muscular as Eddie, but still trim and fit.

Well, we’d give this our best shot.

Well, what do you know. After a bit of back and forth, we were up 2-1. But they scored some more points. At 5-2, Scotty popped up a ball. I zeroed in on the volley and gave it my best slam. It was a rocket and there was no way that they could touch it. That’s because I’d hit it down and right into my side of the net! Embarrassing and frustrating! “That one will haunt you tonight!”, consoled Eddie diagonally across the net.

John and I advancing to the net in the first half of the consolation match.

Later on in the match, there was one point that really stood out. We were all at the net in the midst of a dinking battle. In the bat of an eyelash, it transformed into a flurry of volleyed balls back and forth. All of us were involved. Then the point was reset, back to dinking. Then a volley battle. I think Eddie got me with a shot to the shoulder, but I can’t recall for sure. Regardless, it was a fabulous point to be a part of. Highlight film, that one.

Those two points that we scored early on would be the last that we scored in a 15-2 loss. I found out later that they were a 4.0 team. No wonder.

We walked off the court and John’s wife Diane and their friend Bonnie was there. Diane smiled and consoled John, “Boy, were they picking on you!” I said, “Funny, I hadn’t noticed.” Bonnie looked at me and backed up Diane, “They sure were.”

They also said that Scott had foot faulted on a number of his serves. They said Tom confirmed the faults. With no ref, these went uncalled. I walked over to Scott and told him while it would have made no difference in the outcome of our match, he might want to keep an eye on that in case a future match is officiated. He appreciated me taking the time to share that.

With the second of two losses, we were eliminated from the tournament. It was a good experience, but I may just skip some tournaments in the future if I know that skill rating will be mostly ignored in favor of age groupings. I don’t care if a player is 20 or 70. I want to know how well they play pickleball and be sorted into tournament brackets based on that.

The Other Santa Cruz Teams

Santa Cruz has good representation at the tournament, it was fun to see familiar faces.

Kevin (red) and Kent (white) on their way to a win while spectators look on.

Tom Sherwood and his wife watching Kevin and Kent play. Tom’s day was as successful as ours—out in two matches, unfortunately.

While waiting to play the Daves, I was sitting next to Eddie. He told me that when I hit that one slam into the net, the two of them said, “We got this.” Ouch. Good to hear how one bad shot can provide a big boost to your opponents.

I told Eddie that we’d signed up as a 3.0 team. He said, “You’re 3.5, no question.” I don’t know if he was talking about me personally or our team in general, but good to have the feedback.

Eddie said in a prior big tournament, his regular partner—not Scott—had to play lefthanded due to an injury and even then they didn’t lose a single game on the way to winning gold. He said they were told they had to move up to 4.0 after that by the association.

Dean and Dave D. had an off day and were out in two matches. Dean was missing shots that I’d almost never seen him miss. (It was like me back in Paso Robles. I felt his pain.)

The team of two Daves won their first match in the consolation bracket and earned the right to play Eddie and Scott next. They did better than John and me, but not by much. 15-5 was the final score.

Paddle taps after the game. Daves on the left side of the net, Eddie and Scott on the right.

After they beat the team of Daves, I congratulated Scott. He smiled and said that he had stepped back a couple of times on his serves following my advice since he was close to foot faulting. He thanked me again. Good guy.

Heading Home

I left about 2:30. Kent and Kevin hadn’t still had’t lost by the time I left, but I wanted to get home. Traffic was heavy in spots on my trip back. With a stop at In’N’Out Burger, I was home at 5:30. I was in time to dig out some blackberry sprouts and another foot or so of blackberry bush outside our kitchen window!

Results

Dave Allenbaugh posted the tournament results on the SCPC website soon after the tournament:

The Santa Cruz Pickleball  Club was well represented at the recent Sonoma Wine Country Games.

Congratulation to the following players.

Kent Shain and  Kevin Kearney Won SILVER, Men’s doubles in the 4.0/3.5/3.0 bracket

John Pacholski and Bonnie Jenkins  Won SILVER Mixed doubles in the 50-69, 3.0 bracket and GOLD in the 60-64, 3.0 bracket
 
John Pacholski and Andrew Lenz won BRONZE Men’s doubles in the 4.0/3.5/3.0 bracket

David and Beth Black won BRONZE mixed doubles  in the 4.0 bracket

Leslie McGarvey and Wade Johnson won GOLD Mixed Doubles in the 4.0/3.5 bracket

Leslie McGarvey and Laurie Roberts won GOLD Women’s doubles in the 5.0/4.5

Barb Raab and Kevin Kearney won BRONZE mixed doubles in the 4.0/3.5 bracket

Beth Black and Julie Trujillo won SILVER women’s doubles in the 55-59,4.0/3.5 bracket and Bronze, in the 50-59, 4.0 bracket

As you can see, John and I were listed as winning a bronze medal. So funny. After losing every game, maybe they felt bad for us and gave us a medal for showing up. Apparently, we were the third of three teams in our age group.

Looking at the results on the tournament website, our first match was against the Men’s Doubles 50-59:4.0/3.5/3.0 Overall Bracket Winners bronze medal team and our second match was against the silver medal team. Into the fire, as they say!

I have no regrets going. It was great experience going up against very strong opponents. It can only make you better.

Number of days on a court: 157
Number of total hours: 430.5

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