Saturday, July 14, 2018 (Court Day #169)
4th Annual Jane Carey Memorial Pickleball Tournament (Pleasanton)
I got up, got ready, drank some pickle juice to hopefully prevent any leg cramps, then picked up Eric at 7:02 a.m. for our drive to Pleasanton. The tournament organizers had split the “Intermediate” group into “57 and under” and those older who would play in the afternoon. Being that I’m well under 58, Eric and I were in the morning bracket with play starting at 9 a.m. We arrived about 8 a.m., as planned, with plenty of time to settle in.
The event was held at Pleasanton Middle School. We easily found the gym. (Their sign didn’t hurt!) The courts were nicely set up using wide blue tape for the court lines. There was no air conditioning, but the day was relatively mild. I say “relatively, because Pleasanton can sometimes exceed 100° in the summer, so I was happy that it only in the high 80s.
We checked in at the registration table—getting our commemorative shirts in the process—then found an empty court at the end and started warming up. We still had almost an hour before our first game, but we wanted to be well ready to play. After a few minutes, a very nice African-American mom and daughter asked to join us. Kenna, the daughter, told me that they were from the midwest but were visiting people in Modesto. They wanted to play while they were in California and found this tournament and signed up. They were playing in the Women Advanced bracket. We did some dinking and volleying then we played a game. They solidly won the first game; they made very few errors and took full advantage of any of our mistakes—even the slight ones.
We were leading in the second warm-up game when Julian, the tournament director, called everyone outside into the cool shade to provide instructions. It would be “11 points, win by 1” for the winners bracket and “15, win by 1” in the losers bracket. A bit unusual that it’d be win by 1 for the 11 point games, but they had a schedule to keep. The event would use the USAPA rules, but it was not sanctioned and we’d be reffing our own games. Jane Carey’s daughter spoke a bit about her mom—the namesake of the tournament—and got choked up in the process. It’s hard not to love your mom.
Since there were seven teams in our bracket, one team had a bye. That would not be us. (That would be Brian Adams and his son Samuel Adams—no, I’m not making that up . . . and yes, I know the rock star spells it “Bryan Adams”, but still.) We’d be playing immediately at Court #4.
Match #1
Our first game was against Carl Munoz and Esko Long. Eric and I had played previously with Carl at the Camden Community Center months ago in preparation for our Livermore tournament—the one that Eric had to miss due to illness and for which John P. took his spot. (John and I went on to win gold in the 3.0 category there.) It was fun to see Carl again, he has an easy smile. Asko was more serious, but a nice guy.
We weren’t sure how we’d do at first since our opponents were both in their 20s and—as with most tournaments—we’d never played this team before. Carl is a decent player, but Esko was noticeably stronger with harder and more accurate shots. We decided to soften the game then we slowly pulled away and won both games and the match 11-3, 11-3. *whew* First one out of the way! “Hopefully, we’ll see you in the finals. We’ll have to work our way up,” shared Asko, optimistically.
The results of the first game.
It was hot in the gym. There was no air conditioning. I don’t sweat easily, but at each timeout or break between games all day, I was using the commemorative towel that was given to players at Livermore to mop the sweat from my head and neck. I was also drinking a lot of water to boot, going through my large water bottle from home.
Match #2
We didn’t have to wait long for the second game, which was against the bye team, Brian and his son Charlie. (He doesn’t go by Samuel, I don’t blame him, there would be a whole lot of beer jokes!) Charlie is in his teens. They were both good guys and good sports.
Eric and I found ourselves down significantly in that game. My play had slipped. Our opponents had figured that out and were picking on me. But then we fought back to the bad side of 10-8. We were on the verge of losing. They only needed 1 point to take the game. Brian even announced, “10-8-1. Win by 1, right?” Fortunately for us, we won the next 3 points and the game 11-10. After a brief break, we moved into the second game. Charlie got a slightly higher percentage of shots from us in this game. He’s a good player—especially for being in his teens—but his dad is the better player. Eric and I took the second game 11-5 and the match to move on in the winners bracket.
The scoresheet from our second match.
March #3 (Semifinals)
I was concerned going into the third match. We’d be facing a team that had already won two matches, just like us. This would almost certainly be a stronger team—it’d be Jake Gray and his uncle Kelly Erardi. Upbeat with smiles, Jake and Kelly would prove to be a true pleasure to play with.
I had right to be concerned. We got smacked down in the first game 11-5. One more lost game and we’d be jettisoned to the losers bracket.
As we were about to begin, I told our opponents, “Hopefully, we can get you a better game this time!”
And we did. We held them to 3 points, winning 11-3. After the game, Kelly said, “You didn’t have to give us THAT much of better of a game!”
Onto the last/tie-breaker game. Jake and Kelly kept this one was closer, but we prevailed 11-8 and won the match.
I had not yet realized at the time the game ended, but we’d qualified for the finals and were guaranteed a silver medal. Now, we just had wait for the consolation bracket to provide our opponents.
The results of the semifinal match.
The Waiting Game
The posted bracket chart showed that we’d have to wait through two 15 point games. Esko and Carl would be facing the Adams family. Then the winner would face Jake and Kelly to determine who would face us for the gold medal.
Men’s “Intermediate 57 & Under” bracket.
We rested for most of of our wait. The rest was welcome, but cooling down was not good for body parts. My knee was aching somewhat. I took a couple ibuprofen and I ate my breakfast, a banana.
At the far court (#6), Brian and Charlie (white hat) are playing Carl and Asko (far right).
At what we figured was about 10 minutes before we were to play again, we played a game with Kenna and her mom. They too, were headed into a finals match. They were solid—as you’d expect for an advanced team. We had a very hard time scoring points on them. We all wished each other luck and shared fist bumps.
The consolation bracket went as I’d predicted. Charlie and Brian over Asko and Carl, Kelly and Jake over them. It’d be a rematch of our last match for the gold medal.
Finals Match
Eric and I were tired. I’m sure Kelly and Jake were also fatigued. By rule, if we lost the match, a second “tie-breaker match” would be played since they had come up through the losers bracket.
We lost the first game 8-11. Jake and Kelly were formidable opponents. They deserved to be in the gold medal match. But Eric and I knew that even if we lost the match, we’d have another shot. But we were also very tired and so we had strong incentive to just win and be done.
Before the second game, we consulted. I asked Eric, “What do you think?” “I think the soft game isn’t working. I think we should try hitting harder. Especially to Kelly.”
As we all walked back to the court to start the second game, we all commiserated about being tired. Jake smiled and said something about them winning second game and forcing another 2 of 3 match. I told him, “We’ll do everything we can to keep that from happening!”
We lost the first service without scoring a point. We held them on their first serve from Jake, then Kelly served to me. “Hit it hard,” I thought, and I did. Right into the net. We were down 1 point. But as time went on, our change in strategy worked.
I was making particular effort to come to a complete stop before doing my dropshots. I have a very bad habit of sometimes doing them on the move—with only varying success. As you’d expect, my dropshots were far more effective and accurate when I stopped to make them. Duh.
The second game was ours. 11-2. It wasn’t easy, but it was lopsided in terms of score. I won a point or two from a hard backspin forehand slice that they couldn’t return. After one, Jake said, “I wasn’t expecting that one to get over the net!” (Backspin shots don’t sink like topspin shots.) I was successful with about half a dozen left-handed dinks though one ended up in the net and another went too high—right into Kelly’s wheelhouse that he attacked for a winner down the middle. I didn’t do that again—I kept them low!
Eric and I really, really wanted to win the last game in match and just be done. We went ahead 2-0. Service changed sides often. It was a battle. But in the end, it was a 11-5 win for Eric and me.
We’d won the gold medal! Amazing!
Post-Matches
After we were done playing, it was time for some photos. We were told to put on our tournament T-shirts. The daughter of the namesake of the tournament presented our medals and had a photo taken with us. Everyone was super nice.
The prototypical paddle/medal pose. You can just see Keena above Eric’s right shoulder and her mom above my left shoulder.
Yeah, that’s us: “1st place!!!”
Eric, me, Jake and Kelly dead tired, but basking in the medals. I’m sporting my Santa Cruz Pickleball Club shirt.
Eric had some interesting observations. First, Eric and my combined age (110) was significantly higher than the next oldest team—by several decades! Also, we played only the best teams—we didn’t face any team that finished lower than 4th.
Eric and I left about 1:30, made a stop for snacks and I had him back home about 3:10. A day well spent.
Yep. Nice!
I slept well that night!
Number of days on a court: 169
Number of total hours: 469
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