Sneakerz #1 Beach Volleyball Tournament: Results

It was a long, hot day, but a good turnout and some great play made this event all well worth while. Aside from local talent, we had players from AZ, CO and one with at UT/ CA connection. We even had one guy make the long trip up from Las Cruces to play in the event. Exciting to see the sport on the rebound in our state. This is especially true when considering many players are still on the floorboard until nationals is over this weekend in New Orleans.

So, the nitty gritty. It was a long day with short pool play games in the morning (15 pts). I think consensus amongst the players was to run smaller pools with fewer games to get the first phase out of the way sooner and leave teams with more energy for the playoffs. After pool play, the top finishers went into an upper bracket and the bottom finishers went into a lower one. Both brackets ran a double elim (6 upper and 5 lower). Some teams were playing really well and there was some parody with teams that beat one in pool losing in the playoffs and vice-versa. Colin and Thierry teamed up for the first time and had a strong showing, despite being fatigued by the heat. Chris still has his touch in spite of retirement and played well with his old partner, Brian from AZ. Matt and Rob played very well towards the end of the day in their first pairing, winning 3 consecutive matches in elimination play to make it to the finals. Andy and Gray pulled it together late in the day as well to conquer the lower bracket after fighting through a tough pool that saw many close matches and even records. I felt that Loric and I played strong throughout the day and felt the strongest during the finals, a good sign that all the conditioning has been paying off. We finished with an undefeated record and have some momentum to build on for our CA trip.
Anyhow, here are the results from memory, as my week has been pretty hectic and I haven't had a chance to call Tavake:
1) Loric Box/ Adam Rubel 2) Matt Valencia/ Rob Pierce 3) Chris Hammock/ Brian Post 4) Thierry Thelliez/ Colin Vito. Lower Bracket Winner: Andy Rice/ Gray Davis
Thanks again to Tavake and Sneakerz for a great tourney and Paul Sanchez for some great pics. The next event is 6/3. I'll be back in town next Wednesday to post entries, so go ahead and call Tavake or hang an email for me!