Month: October 2018 (Page 3 of 4)

Monday, October 8, 2018 (Court Day #211)

Today was the club’s fall celebration. Play followed by food followed by an update on the workings of the club administration.

I arrived at Brommer Park at 8:45. I was worried about finding parking, but the lot was still half empty.

Terry Long explains the play format for the randomized team tournament.

We had 8 teams of 6 players, plus some players who came just to visit and hang out but not participate. There were around 60 people there today.

Each participant drew a number from a basket. I drew “4”, which put me on a team with Leslie, her husband Tim, Chris (tall tennis player), Melody, and MaryAnne who has been playing for about a month. They wanted me to be their captain. We needed to pick three pairs to play the three games in each round. Leslie and I were our #1 pair, Mel and Chris were our #2, and Tim and MaryAnne were our #3 pair.

There  was a twist in that a losing team could randomly pick a numbered rock from a bag and swap whatever player on the other team who was assigned that number. Oleg and Kent ended up on other teams. Our team stayed intact, start to finish.

I have to admit, I was a bit worried while warming up first thing—coincidentally, with Leslie—when I was dink/dropping shots into the net. “And that’s why I’m not a 5.0!”, I told her. But once real play started later, it was like a switch was flipped. All—almost—of my shots were going where I wanted.

Leslie and I wiped out all of our opponents. 11-2, 11-4, 11-2, 11-5 were our game scores for the four rounds of the day. I was expecting more of a fight from Dave Cox and Bob (visiting from SoCal) but they never got any momentum. Leslie and I were leading Dave Witte and Craig 10-1, when they got the serve back. “All we have to do is score 10 points in a row!”, announced Dave. They did go on a run of 4 points, but then we finished them off 11-5.

Lunch!

After the funky tournament, we had a potluck lunch. I brought an assortment of chips. There was a lot of assorted yummy foods.

SCPC Meeting

After everyone was done eating, we all gathered on the grass for an update from the steering committee. We learned some things, such as:

• The City of Santa Cruz is considering adding new courts downtown somewhere near the county courthouse.
• There are 308 people signed up for club emails and are de facto members.
• The club is going to an annual paid membership ($20 to start/$30 for 2020) which will give special access to parts of the club website.
• The club is incorporated but is looking at 501(c)3 or 501(c)7 status. (Karen mentioned having to sign forms as an individual and incur risk doing so, maybe that was before they incorporated.)
• The club is in good financial shape, but the City/County are considering charging the club the full rate instead of the non-profit rate for our reserved hours. They are hoping not, but the club is prepping for it, just in case.

Alan (English accent) asked about an organized competition on the Brommer courts. I don’t think he used the word, but he was asking about a club “ladder.” Karen said that if we to run an organized thing at a set time at the courts, that the club would have to pay the county for reserving the courts for that time.

Club members spread out on the lawn during Karen’s portion of the presentation.

Afterward, I approached Karen and also voiced my support for a club ladder. She said in the past, we haven’t had enough players to do one, but we probably had enough 3.5 players now. She then asked, “Are you willing take it on?”
I said, “I’m not saying ‘no’. I’m pretty organized.”
She smiled and said, “I know you are.”
“Let me do some research.”

Tuesday, October 9, 2018 (No play)

Monday afternoon, I posted asking about ladders in the Pickleball Forum on Facebook. A woman, Susan Buchman shared her experiences with running a ladder and also included a link to ladder information on the USAPA website:
http://usapa.org/ladder-leagues/

Reading to do!

Number of days on a court: 211
Number of total hours: 580

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Sunday, October 7, 2018 (Court Day #210)
Livermore Valley Tennis Club Harvest Pickle Ball Tournament

John stopped by my house to catch a ride and we pulled out at exactly 10 a.m. as we headed to the Livermore Valley Tennis Club Harvest Pickleball Tournament.
(Or “Livermore Valley Tennis Club Harvest Pickle Ball Tournament” as they listed themselves on PickleballTournaments.com!)

In the car, I mentioned that we were playing to 15, win by 2. John hadn’t gotten the email and was expecting at least 8 games and possibly 12 games. Instead, we’d be playing just 4. John was disappointed.

We arrived about 11:10 a.m. and pulled into the lot. John shared a couple of his leg cramps pills with me and an electrolyte tablet that I dropped into the water bottle that I brought which was half water and half ice cubes. The weather prediction was low 80s with wind. I also took a couple of preemptive ibuprofen.

We walked through the main doors and were politely directed towards the tournament in back. Another staff member down the corridor overheard then stepped in and showed us a shortcut.

The registration tent and waiting area.

A few days ago, John had emailed me the player list off PickleballTournaments.com:

but the list emailed out yesterday by Kat (the tournament director) included one more pair: “Krauss/Allen”. Regardless, five teams is a very small tournament.

John politely voiced his discontent to Kat with the change from best 2 of 3 games to a single game to 15—especially after the cutoff to drop out of the tournament. John told her that he likely wouldn’t have come. I always want to play and would have wanted to come anyway . . . given that I already knew of the change from the email a couple of days ago.

Their magnetic board showing who was playing where on the four courts.

We went up to the food area and John made himself half a sandwich. The venue was generous with food and drinks. Gatorade, bananas, apples, and water at the courts, plus potato salad, chips, and deluxe sandwich makings up in the cafeteria. We chatted with a guy named Mike from Lincoln, California who was also there for the tournament and is a 3.5 player. We’d be playing against him sooner or later.

John and I warmed up. Boy, we’d have two twists today. One was the wind. But the other, the doozy, was the court surface itself. It’s a bit spongy. I went to bounce the ball just outside the baseline of one of the back courts and the ball literally did not come back up to my hand! It bounced about 6 inches then fell back to the ground! Fortunately, it was better inside the court itself. Still, the balls did not bounce normally. John said he was told that some pro tennis courts are made from the same material. Well, pickleball is not tennis!

I had a banana, figuring the potassium would help fight off cramping.

First Game

Our first match was against—lo and behold—Mike from Lincoln and his partner Hamid. The wind was a factor. Each team lost 2-3 serves due to the ball being blown out. We switched sides at 8. John and I found ourselves down 13-8. It wasn’t looking good. But then we battled back to 14-14. We’d gone on a several point run, but then I served the ball wide out to the right. It was just a lack of focus—sloppy. John then got a shot to continue the run as the second server but we lost that point. They got the next two points and closed out the game and handed us a 16-14 loss. Drat. So close.

We had a little break before the second round.

Second Game

In our second game, we faced Dennis and Liam. That would be “Krauss/Allen”. It was a lopsided game. We won handily 15-2 in less than 10 minutes. We were walking to the restroom when Mike (who was on a bye) was walking back toward the courts. “Are you done already?”, he asked incredulously. I told him the score. We had a decent amount of time to wander before the next game.

Third Game

For the third game, we were facing David and Robert. David was pretty stoic. Robert made David look downright giddy. We took the lead. At 13-7, our scoring stalled. They staged a comeback and tightened up the score to 13-11. But then we got our act together and won two points and took the match, 15-11.

We were standing at 2 wins and 1 loss in the round robin. What I figured to be our hardest match, Kelly and Jake, was coming.

Fourth Game

I just have to say, I really like Kelly and Jake. They are down-to-earth and don’t take things too seriously—getting a smile out of them is easy. Playing against them is a joy.

Our fourth and final game was a good one. It was back and forth. It seemed that they were targeting John somewhat more than me—I’d serve, it’d get returned to John; John’d serve, it’d get returned to John. Jake and Kelly pulled ahead. We got back within two points, but then they got that last point to take them to 15 and win the game, 15-12. John admitted later that the heat had been starting to take its toll on him. Yes, 80-ish degrees. But it seemed cool compared to Eric and my indoor tournament in July with no air conditioning!

John and I finished the tournament with a 2-2 game record.Not impressive. John suggested getting on the road for home. But given that there were only five teams, I told John that a medal was not out of the question and it might be possible that we could even take silver. After all, in the indoor tournament seven months ago, we’d won the gold on mathematical tiebreakers with three teams that finished with the same number of wins and losses.

Milo and Art

After our last game, we had to wait for the last round before we’d know the results. I wanted to get a sandwich from their spread in their cafeteria on the second floor of their complex, so that’s where we headed. We had a nice conversation with Art and Milo, whom we’d played against at the indoor tournament in Pleasanton back in February. Art and Milo were competing in the pool of 3.0 players. Surprising to me—shocking, actually—Art somehow actually stumbled on my blog at some point and remembered me writing up that tournament. “Are you going to write something about this tournament?”, he asked. I told him that I would be.

Results

We headed back to the courts to see if things were done. Kelly and Jake were still playing, but they would go on to win their final game and sweep all their games to win the gold medal. The rest of the medals were in question. I asked Kat about it. “Silver” was written next to one time but no “Bronze” was listed. Kat seemed to be a bit confused by the whole process. We’d been told the medals would be decided by wins and the tie-breaker would be points. I offered to help figure it out. So, with John at my side, we went about determining the margin of victory and margin of losses of the two teams in contention for the remaining medals. Between our wins and losses, we ended up with a “+12” point total. The other team finished with a “+8”. We’d be taking home silver!

John and I sporting our silver medals.

John & me and Jake & Kelly, the gold medal winners.

I pulled up in front of my house at 4:28 p.m.

The silver medal.

Between warm-ups and games, I figure a couple hours to add to my total hours of court time/play is appropriate.

Oh. And my shot of the day. I was  on the left. There was a sharp long crosscourt dink.It all happened so fast. I switched the paddle to my left hand and hit a drive passing shot. I watched it in slow motion low over the net and perfectly parallel to the sideline heading for the backcourt, it would be landing in. My opponent had no choice. He jabbed out his paddle but he was too late. The ball ricocheted off the edge of his paddle and clamored along the chain link fence. Winner. And all of my half dozen or so left-handed shots were successful—not all outright winners, but very much not losers.

Number of days on a court: 210
Number of total hours: 578

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Friday, October 5, 2018 (Court Day #209)

I decided to take the morning off from work. Staffing was ok. I arrived at Brommer Park at 9:05.

Mike, Carl, John P. (white hat) and a man warm up on the near court. Chris on the far right.

I got in the first game in with Dean as my partner. While warming up, he asked, “Are you related to the Lenz that was mentioned in the paper?” He was referring to a periodic column with event results about local kids gone off to college and are athletes. “Yes, that’s my daughter Charlotte sailing for Tufts.” “Did you go to Tufts too?” “No, I was a UCSC Slug.” Dean mentioned that his son sailed for a very short time at a college back east. My wife had texted me yesterday afternoon asking if I’d submitted the information about Charlotte to the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Nope. And I still don’t know who tipped them off about her top 3 finish at a regatta back east.

I didn’t play all that great in that first game. Too many shots too high. I returned a serve into the net. Embarrassing while playing with a very good player as your partner. Ugh. I apologized to Dean, but he was cordial and said he made mistakes too.

Much later, John P. and I played a game against lefty Steve and Ted/Theo. It was a good back and forth game. What’s amazing is how close the game was even given that I faulted on at least four to five of my serves! I was just giving points away. I made a mention of this to John after we lost 12-10. Then Ted came by just as I sat down to wait for the next game: “It’s those unforced errors.” Yep. Some days, I get the feeling that I can’t miss on my serves. I can spin, hit deep, short and I’m just “in tune” with the ball. It goes where I want. Today was almost the opposite. I hope I can to clean those up for Sunday’s tournament.

John and I were playing a last game against Kent and Ted. Ahead 6-4, Kent opted out to nurse a sore ankle and Carl took his place. We got one point in when we heard a loud thud. A special needs young man had fallen face first on the sidewalk. It was scary. His caretaker was kneeling down seeing to him. We called over to Beth Black, a nurse, who immediately went over to help. It was 12:08. The young man, Matt, was bleeding significantly from his chin. Rick and I retrieved the first-aid kit from the group’s van at the man’s request. We stayed to see if any further assistance was needed, but Beth had things under control. She was recommending an ambulance, but the caretaker said someone was coming from their facility and that they had protocols they had to follow. Regardless, all play had stopped. I left to shower and head to work.

Tournament

My next outing will be the tournament. Maybe I’m overly confident, but I’ll be disappointed with anything less than  silver medal. We’ll be facing Kelly and his nephew Jake who gave Eric and me a run for our money at the Pleasanton tournament in July. The other players are unknowns. Maybe John and I will come home with nothing. If I play like today, it’ll be a toss up. If I play well, we should medal.

The tournament director sent out an email this morning:
“The Tournament format of play for Mens Doubles and Mixed Doubles changed to 1 game to 15 points win by 2.”

Earlier in the week, she’d sent out a message saying it was winner of 2 out of 3 games to 11. For a round robin, that seemed like a lot to me and it seems that they also figured out that they likely wouldn’t have time for that format!

Saturday, October 6, 2018 (No Play)

The play schedule was emailed out today. Our bye is at the very end. Given the choice, I would have picked either Round 3 or Round 4 for a bit of a rest, but we got Round 5. I know Round 4 will be tough. That’s Kelly and Jake from the Pleasanton tournament.

John and I are planning to leave Santa Cruz around 10 a.m. Civilized hours for a change! No sleeping on a hotel floor and getting up at 6 a.m.

Injury Status

Well, right elbow hurts a bit at times. I think it’s from overhead smashes, I need to be more careful. My upper right arm aches near the shoulder, probably just from a lot of play this week. My right ankle still occasionally hurts from rolling it months ago—though about the only time I notice it is every night when I’m in bed getting ready to go to sleep or when I do something on the court that tweaks it. My back has been more or less a constant companion of aches and pains. Crouching for return of service makes it very apparent. Even moving to sitting up straight from more of a slouch aches. But depending on how I’m holding myself, it doesn’t hurt. Mild somewhat regular but passing things include a knee, a hip, right glute muscle. It’s a sport that requires quick turns, lunging, jumping and swinging, starts and stops. I’m over 50, not a 20-something these days. It’s probably just par for the course.

Number of days on a court: 209
Number of total hours: 576

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.