At eighty degrees and sunny with a cool breeze coming off the lake, week 8 featured the best weather we have seen all year, and we took full advantage of it, making this a week of laughing and crying (figuratively), winning and losing, death and rebirth . . . okay nobody died, and only a bug was reborn (sorry no Jesus sightings this week) but still, it was a pretty significant week in a cosmic sort of way.
Here is a picture of a cicada hatching from its cocoon right on our scoreboard.
With $120 dollars in bounty money paid out last week, we only had $40 on the line this week, but I bet the people lucky enough to be playing the bounty teams still wanted to win!
Unfortunately neither of them did, although both games were really close.
The first bounty game matched up Tunderballz against the Moppines. After losing the first game 2-11 Thunderballz was able to bounce back and win the second game 11-2. As so often happens when the first two games are blow outs in each direction, the third game was very close. The bounty team – Thunderballz – managed to win 12-10 and save the bounty money for the rest of the league. Sara Tully of Thunderballz played a big part in the win by knocking in 10 bocces, while Jacob managed 14 points and 7 bocces. Greg Griffo of the Moppines made sure the bocces kept coming by netting nine himself.
The Knickerbocces were the second bounty team, and they matched up against Some Innuendo. The Knickerbocces were able to win all three games but none of them came easily. Some Innuendo managed to score 31 points despite losing three games (in case you are wondering the scores were 12-10, 12-9, and 14-12) and Keith Curreri of Some Innuendo managed a whopping 21 points in a losing effort.
21 points scored without winning a game is an impressive stat. So are the 22 points Josh put up in a winning effort, but maybe the most impressive stat that this game yielded was Josh Wheeler’s 5 successful challenges. So far as I know that is a record. Good eye Josh.
Of course, this means that both bounties will be set at $40 for next week so keep your fingers crossed, and maybe you will be able to walk away with some money.
Lets go straight to the 20 point club.
I have already mentioned that Josh from the Knicerbocces scored 22 and that Keith from Some Innuendo scored 21 in a rare double 20 point game. But the twenty point club does not end there. We had plenty of 20+ point scorers this week.
Rick Polano from Neighborhood Balls scored 22 and got 3 wins to go with it.
Hammer from Beer United scored 23 points (one off a season high) and also got 3 wins . . . don’t forget this performance, I will be talking more about it later.
Sandy Colabufo from Onipotence scored 20 points despite losing two games.
Jim Whipple from New Bocce Order scored 20 points (again) and is on pace to smash the all-time points record of 180 that I set just last year (darn).
Badger from Salty Bocce Balls scored twenty points on route to three wins against one of the best teams in our league, 2 Balls on Your Ace, who only had 4 losses all year long (so you know beating them three times in one day is a major accomplishment).
Scott Popp from the aforementioned 2 Balls on Your Ace, scored 20 later in the day in an inspiring bounce back make-up game against BBB.
Mike Aylesworth of Droppin Balls got twenty against another top team in the Landlords.
That’s nine 20 points scorers in all (tied for the most we have had in a week this year) and to go with that, Allison Bodine of Double A’s, Garth Coviello of SMACtion, Tim Maynard of Lord of the Balls, and Mark Streiff of Mark & Robb all scored 19.
It was a huge day for bocces too, as we had three players get double digit bocce totals.
Phil Martino of Sout Beach got 10. Rob Calvani of Kentucky Bourbon got 10. And Sara Tully of Thunderballz got 10. While Donna Aitken and Greg Griffo each got 9.
Joe Sr. from Average Joes lead the way with 4 aces.
As far as trend setters go, Chris Christou of KPP unleashed a new shot dubbed The Basketball Shot. Now, his team went 0-3 against second place South Beach, so I’m not sure how effective the shot was, but as you can clearly see in the picture below, Chris looked good doing it, and after all isn’t that more important in its own way?
Jim Whipple continues to dominate both the team and individual standings as he scored twenty and his first place team won all three games against top five foe Rolling Blackouts. At the bottom of his scorecard was this quote . . .
“When a guy has war paint on, ya gotta expect to lose.” – Dough
I have to admit, Dough makes a lot of sense.
Sometimes you go long stretches without seeing history made, while other times history seems to be made at every turn (I guess that is the beauty of sports). After going more than a year without a Buzz Saw we have now had two Buzz Saws in two consecutive weeks. Last week, Droppin Balls accomplished the difficult task of beating a team 14-0 while this week Beer United managed to do it against DaVinci.
The day started with me asking Chris Malone of Beer United if he wanted a substitute partner because I knew his partner Jim “Hammer” McCarthy recently had his patella tendon viciously torn from his body by an evil Wegmans store (which I hope one day soon will be called Hammers).
Chris politely turned down my offer for a sub stating that Hammer was going to come a try to tough it out. Tough it out the Hammer did. Scoring 23 points and leading his team to 3 wins, one of which they got 14-0, against a veteran DaVinci team. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Their Buzz Saw got us talking about the history of the Buzz Saw. You may be interested to know that the first ever Buzz Saw took place against Hammer and his Beer United team. Phil Martino and George Christou of Black Jesus accomplished that feat and then promptly coined the term Buzz Saw which has stuck ever since. Their Buzz Saw was retribution for the first ever shut out, which Beer United had inflicted upon them the year before.
You may also be interested to know that this is Hammer and Beer United’s second Buzz Saw, and they are the only team ever to get two. In fact, by our count there have been six Buzz Saw’s all-time, and Hammer has been involved in three of them. So there you have it. Now you know much more than I am sure you ever wanted to know about the Buzz Saw award, but you know what, I’m going to tell you one more thing anyway. Hammer chose a PBR and a Tullamore Due as his prize for beating DaVinci 14-0, and I have to say that somehow those choices felt right to me, and that Tullamore Due tasted just like birthday cake (which is a whole different story).
At the White Water Pub Mr. and Mrs. Christou made their first appearance in the USA as husband and wife having just gotten home from their honeymoon, so how could we not give Siobhan (George’s wife) the George Christou award?
There are tons more pics on our Facebook page HERE.
