Virginia States

04/15/11 in Fredericksburg, VA

OPEN Division

WOMEN Division

Thanks to Harvey Brandt for the results.

First, I must make an apology to the field and to two teams in
 particular. I made a huge effort to make the competition as far and
 equal as possible. Then I failed to adequately monitor the results
 from one of the prelim pool sheets. This is what happened: In prelim
 pool B, there was a three way tie for 4th through 6th, all teams a
 1-4. Someone did the tie-breaking calculations correctly but then must
 have applied the results incorrectly. Perhaps because of the head to
 head results. This was important because the 4th place team would go
 the "B" pool and the 5th place team would go to the "C" pool. The team
 that should have been placed in 4th was instead placed in 5th. The
 team that should have been 5th was instead placed in 4th. 6th place
 never was affected. Therefore, two teams ended up in the incorrect
 pools to determine final standings and overall points. At this stage
 of the game, I cannot make any changes. Those two teams played in the
 next pools and the results from those pools have to stand. Check out
 the pools at the results web page and you can see the error. Sincere
 apologies to Leo Rohr and Glen Todd, who were the ones adversely
 affected. And apologies to Peter Andrews and Cade Loving, who were the
 beneficiaries of this accident. It was my responsibility and I accept
 the full blame.
 On to the rest of it all.  Everyone who was there will tell you it was
 some of the most difficult conditions for playing DDC. Our resident
 meteorologist told us it was winds of 20 miles per hour with gusts to
 26. Yippee. Being on the more down wind side resulted in very few
 points scored for anyone, and hard throws to just reach the opposite
 court.
 In the Women's Division, 6 players used a Queen of the Court format to
 determine the best. I don't have a lot of the details but I think I
 have the results. Lori Daniels finished in first (she also won the
 Women's Overall title), Mandy Carreiro finished in second, Beth Verish
 and Terry Frank tied for third, and newcomers Birgit Lenger and Tami
 Hamler finished in a tie for 5th. (If I am wrong, send me a note.)
 There were upsets galore as a result of the tough conditions. In the
 four initial pools, all top seeds advanced but only one of the number
 2 seeds made it to the "A" pool. Three number 3 seeds made the
 jump. As I had stated in the run up to the event, the field was very
 tough down to 15th seed.  I'll let you view the initial pool results
 here (as well as all results) instead of giving you a long winded
 report.
 http://web.mac.com/tmbanzai/DDC_/Results_Stats.html
 In the "A" pool, the 4th seeded team of Jack Cooksey and Rick LeBeau
 came through with only 1 loss, and that was to Mark Horn and Scott
 Zimmerman. The rest of the top 4 teams all ended up with 2 losses. I
 won't go into details, you can check out the results page
 link. Surprisingly, Jack and Rick chose Mark and Scott as their semis
 opponent, the only team that beat them. And they almost paid for
 it. Jack and Rick survived a very tough semi, 17-15, 12-16, 15-12 to
 advance to the finals. In the other semi, defending champs Harvey
 Brandt and Dave Hesselberth had little difficulty with Conrad Damon
 and Carlton Howard, 15-10 and 16-8. The wind was a major factor, as
 previously stated. If you didn't score on the up wind side, you were
 usually in trouble.  The finals were a great example of that. Jack and
 Rick scored consistently while on the up wind side, and showed
 superior strength even when on the down wind side. The first game was
 total domination for Jack and Rick, 15-3. Finally waking up, Harvey
 and Dave did make a game of it in the second game but fell short in
 that one, 16-14. Congratulations to both Jack and Rick. For Rick, it
 is yet another in a long list of major titles. I think this may be the
 first big title in DDC for Jack. Of course Jack has many VA titles in
 other events (being totally dominant over the past several years in
 MTA and distance, and four overall titles).  All in all, a great event
 that would have really benefited from lighter winds. Given the weather
 VA States saw on Saturday (the same high winds with lower temperatures
 AND lots of rain) we can't complain too much.  I want to thank
 everyone who brought courts, discs, cones, and nails for this
 event. We could not do this without everyone's help.