Taos Solar Spike

Well, fresh back from a trip up to Taos. It was a pretty good event, with strong backing from the local radio station and the town itself. Disapointed in the turnout, at least in the sand. The grass had a decent showing, especially with the battle of the businesses. There were only 6 teams in the men's sand and 4 womens. It's just difficult to get the limited number of players to turn out from the region for events before they get established. I think announcing and locking prize money prior to an event will help to attract open players, maybe also listing entries. A little disappointing to have the low turnout affect the payout in the sand. That being said, the teams were good quality and there were some good matches. A couple of new young guys came out from Albuquerque and were very impressive in their sand doubles debut. Apparently one of them played hoops for UNM. Hopefully they are excited about the sport and will keep coming out for events and work on improving their skills throughout the winter. Another surprise team was Bryan and Nate. Nate is a very strong player in the area from Alaska (though he started playing in CA) for the summer and Bryan is another of the young new guys. They put some good games together and the experience was undoubtedly good for Bryan. Matt played with his friend Adam from back in school, who hadn't played in a while, but looked like a real dangerous player when things started getting back in his groove. Surprise team for the weekend was Jeff and Desi, who put together some great matches, beating Matt and Adam two out of three matches (two of which went 3 games and both wins were in the double elim) and they even pushed us to a tight match in the winner's bracket final. The finals were played in rainy conditions, and Loric and I were clicking well, so we came out on top in a fairly decisive manner. Looked like they had a good turnout for Coed on the grass on Sunday as well. Congrats to Vanessa and Erin who looked to be playing real strong ball since coming back from Chicago and winning the women's open. Hopefully the event will continue to grow next year. Here are the men's results:
1) Loric Box/ Adam Rubel; 2) Jeff Poole/ Desi Vigil; 3) Matt Valencia/ Adam 4) Nathan Beck/ Bryan Klein; 5) Cameron Vigil/ Jeff Hart; 5) Sonny Marquez/ Kameron Cheney