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(Handicapped Format) By Kevin Snelgrove |
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The weather was a little bit kinder than it has been the past couple of weekends. It was still cool and overcast until late in the day, when the sun broke through, just as the championship round was finishing up. The format of handicap play was accepted by most. Rick & Amy Hall agreed - when a pitcher's off their normal game, the handicap system makes it very hard to win. Amy had the toughest time. She started slow, and as the day warmed up, so did she... but was generally not happy with the way the 'win/loss' ended up. She had a tough time with the lowest handicap of 21 points, out of everyone in the state. The objective of the handicapped games was to reach a game total point average of 135-150. Most of the games hit the target. The classes were set up by ranking top to middle, middle to bottom. ... it allowed those middle and lower class pitchers to 'pitch up'.. Jason Lux, who went in with a 29% average was a bit nervous pitching against Amy, Rick and Ron (A class), but became more comfortable when he realized how the scoring was actually done. Ron, having pitched in a club with a similar format, knew what he had to do. He KNEW he had to pitch his average or he would loose AND his opponent could not be having a 'hot' day;. Jason was at his best. Ron, Ricky and Amy did an admirable job promoting sportsmanship, after all, it's a game, just a game. The only tie of the day was in Class1 between Wayne Coonley (37%) and Jason Lux (29%). At the end of the 'dead heat' , Wayne came out on top by 4 points!! The First and Second place winners of each class were invited to stay for the Tournament Championship class. Mark Bouley, Stuarts Draft, Va ended up Tournament Champion with a 25.48 average (see story below). Click here for the full tournament results and photos. Rick and Amy went home without a trophy, only to find that their day
had a worse ending, as we found out later... Bucky, their son, had
been in a severe automobile accident.
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