Two Down, Two to Go
Two championships down, two to go in our Summer League.
Breakfast League: The championship featured a matchup of two teams who had met the week before. For a good portion of the game, it looked like the result would be the same, with Team Swartz, having lost the previous game 6-1, again fell behind 5-1. However, in the final end, Swartz came back with four points to tie up the game and send it to skip stones. Both skips sent their first tiebreaker through the house, so it went to a second tiebreaker. Jon Swartz again sent his shot through the house, his third miss in a row, having missed a chance to score five with his final shot during the game. Finally, Brian Feldman, Jr. took enough off his velocity to hit the house, albeit only after strenuous sweeping from his father and Coach Tim the entire length of the ice brought the stone to rest just inside the twelve-foot circle.
Lunch League. Three weeks ago, Team Cech was languishing in last place in the Whiskey Division with a 2-3 record. Over the last two games of the regular season, they beat the two teams ahead of them in the standings to force a three-way tie, with Cech advancing to the finals by benefit of a 3-1 divisional record. Their reward was a championship match against the heavily-favored Team Pegasus, who had only lost one time all season and had beat Cech 5-3 in Game One. However, Cech made it count when it counted most, falling behind 3-0, then 4-2 before scoring four straight points over the last three ends.
Doubles League: Our inaugural Doubles League will crown its champion tonight. Due to the format of doubles, four teams are still in the running, with the semifinals starting at 5:45, followed directly thereafter by the finals at 6:45. The first semifinal will feature the top-seed duo of Camren Spangler and Nick Vida taking on Dan Stefani and Tony Kelly. Spangler/Vida were dominant through the first half of the season, but stumbled a couple times down the stretch. Stefani/Kelly similarly started 3-1 before losing two of their last three. The other semifinal features teams on the upswing, with the Feldman and Feldman duo having only lost one of their last five games, including being the only lower-seed to win their quarterfinal matchup last week. However, that one loss was to Shelton/Bally, their opponent tonight, a team who has only lost once since Opening Day, but which is now missing half of their dynamic duo.
Thursday League. Next Thursday night, just hours before the start of the 2019 Crush, we will be playing for the last time on Thursday Night, with both of our midweek leagues heading to Tuesday when they return in September. Similar to Breakfast League, Thursday will feature a matchup between two teams facing each other for the second time in a row. Team Frey had to beat the first-place Team Lunetta to rise out of third-place and gain a spot in the Championship. In so doing, they vaulted themselves into first-place and will once again play the now-second-place Lunetta. We’ll see if this game follows its exciting forebear.
Skills Development. We’ve been looking for more ways for Wine Country curlers to improve their level of competition. Some people want to travel to more bonspiels, both fun and competitive, while others want more experience in timed games in an effort to represent Wine Country in competitions like PIC, Club Nationals, and Arena Nationals. Others don’t want to travel, but want to challenge those who are able to.
We will be running a number of on-ice practice and game opportunities during the 9:45 time slot on Sundays and some Tuesday nights, depending on how full our leagues are and how much demand there is for our LTCs. These timelosts will be rotating through standard LTCs, Level II LTCs, and Skills Development. Make sure you contact David Betts or Camren Spangler to be included in discussions about when and what we will be doing these opportunities.