Slacking on Vegas Post

About this time of year I began to slack. I would apologize but in truth it wouldn't be a meaningful apology. It is the end of the year and that is going to be my only explanation.

Vegas is always a player favorite to play in and this year was no exception. It was hot, which is normal, and the courts were very very hard packed but that is normal too. It was at a different location though. We were at Mandalay Bay this year. Almost as big as Ceasar's! Took a good 10 minutes to walk from my hotel room to the site and that was going through the Casino the entire time. Crazy huge.

The event itself had the top 16 players from each gender split into 4 pools of 4 players. I was in a pool with Anthony Medel, Brad Keenan and Jeff Nygaard. A good pool for me as I would be playing with 3 left siders and 2 of them would be big men. On Thursday morning at 8am I played with Jeff vs. Brad/Anthony. The first game was back and forth with Jeff and I pulling it out 25-23. The second game Jeff and I put it together and we won 21-12 which gave Jeff and I a huge upper hand to get out of pool. In the second game I played with Anthony against Jeff and Brad. Normally big/big beats little/little but Anthony sided out great and we scored just enough points to win 22-20 and 21-19. That meant all I had to do was score a total of 32 points with Brad and I would get out for sure. Early Friday morning, Brad and I ended up winning the match in three games. They won the first but Brad and I played well in the second and third and won the match. That meant that Jeff and I would get out of the first round of pool play.

In the second round of pool play I was with Jeff Nygaard again as well as Jake Gibb and Matt Olson. I have played with Jake a couple of tmes before and we have been pretty solid together with Jake playing the left side. Friday night my first match was with Jake and he started off on the left side. He was struggling to sideout and Matt Olson, who normally plays the left side was siding out like a god from the right side. Down 10-16 Jake had had enough and told me to go to the right side. They continued to serve Jake on the right side and we basically played them even and lost 21-14. In the second game they started serving Jake but he sided out at will and they went over to me on the left side. When I passed well I sided out well. We were up several points when I passed two balls poorly and they got it back to within about 2 points. I righted the ship and we ended up winning 21-16. In the third it seemed like we never got a clean side out but somehow kept managing to sideout. We won that game and I have to say I had a blast playing with Jake and having Mike Dodd in the box.

Saturday morning I partnered up with Matt Olson. I have never played with Matt so was looking forward to seeing how we did against the two big men. The odds were against us and we couldn't pull off the upset as they won 21-15 and 21-16. I had fun playing with Matt though. I think we were both a bit tired and sore from jumping on the hard pack sand and we just couldn't get up high enough to score points against the big boys. That loss meant that Matt and I were out of it and to go to the finals would be between Jake and Jeff. Saturday midday Jeff and I played Matt and Jake and we went at Matt. He was still sore and tired and wasn't as crisp as he normally is. Jeff played great the entire match. At 15-8 with us up in the second game, he re-injured his bum knee. We pulled the game out 21-19 to send him to the finals.

In the finals Phil picked John Hyden and Jeff picked me. Frankly the finals was ugly. Jeff struggled valiantly through it and we had some fun points but we got smoked. I think the scores were 21-15 and 21-10 or 12. Like I said, it was ugly. I was stoked for Phil though as that is the one title that has eluded him in his career. I would have liked to keep him from it but it was not to be. Congrats to Phil!