Archive for "Hobbies"
Major League Pickleball – ICT Version
Posted on December 15, 2021 by Ching under Community, Hobbies.
I had the opportunity to participate in another team pickleball event recently. This time it was at Chicken N Pickle. This one was a little different than the Nahola team tournament that we did last month because it was patterned after Major League Pickleball (MLP) complete with a draft and everything.
We had 32 players participate — 16 men and 16 women — and broke out into 8 teams of 4 — 2 men and 2 women. They drew 8 guys randomly and made them team captains and then the captains drafted their team members via a snake draft (to make it more fair — so the captain who gets first pick doesn’t get to pick first every time). I was hoping to livestream the draft just like they did for the real MLP but Michael Harris (the man in charge) decided that it should be a private draft to avoid hurt feelings. I guess people get butt hurt when they are picked last. I can’t really relate because I have such thick skin but some people are very sensitive about this stuff. I told Michael that I don’t mind getting picked last. I’m just happy that I get to play. I mean, there are dozens of pickleball players who probably would have loved to have been invited to play in the first ever ICT MLP but it was a hand-picked select group so the fact that you’re one of the 32 lucky ones who get to join the fun means you’re already winning. But I often see things differently than most.
So they had a somewhat secret draft (it’s not really that private because they did it during the men’s league at CNP on a Wednesday night) and here’s how it turned out:
The captains drew for their pick order and our team captain Daniel Nguyen was lucky enough to get the first pick. Amazingly, he didn’t pick Steve Vetter who I think everyone pretty much assumed would be the #1 draft pick. I was going to tease Daniel and ask him how much Zach Nguyen (who got to pick second) paid him to not pick Steve. LOL.
Anyway, Matthew Rochat is actually an excellent first pick. He will forever be known as the #1 draft pick of the first ever ICT MLP event — a HUGE honor.
Later that night, Daniel messaged me on Facebook to ask for my number and I immediately knew I was on his team. When I found out who the rest of our teammates would be, I was stoked. Fong Witte was our other female team member and she is rock solid and I really enjoy playing with her. I was so excited! Specially after seeing the other team rosters, I thought our team looked pretty darn good. I already had visions of winning the whole thing.
Here are the teams:
Team 1: In It 2 Nguyen It
— Daniel Nguyen (captain)
— Matthew Rochat
— Fong Witte
— Ching Brubaker
Team 2: Tickle My Pickle (don’t ask)
— Zach Nguyen (captain)
— Steve Vetter
— Jody Vinson
— Deana Holman
Team 3: We’d Like to Speak to Your Manager
— Ian Carr (captain)
— Michael Harris
— Krista Crawford
— Karen Fox
Team 4: Watchous Win
— Klee Watchous (captain)
— Scott Wolford
— Karen Taylor
— Lesli Toubassi
Team 5: 3 Dinks and a Fireball
— Donnie Lesperance (captain)
— Bobby Weisbrodt
— Tiffany Lesperance
— Missina Sharp
Team 6: The Porn-stachers
— Kyle Starkel (captain)
— Jeff Bally
— Amy Jaramillo
— Rachel McMahon
Team 7: Old Man and His Posse
— Han You (captain)
— Tim Hereen
— Jen Reifschneider
— MariAnn Hereen
Team 8: 20/20
— Rick McKinney (captain)
— Adam Korfhage
— Jenny Cole
— Jen Tiano
Daniel didn’t really want to come up with a team name and, since I pictured our awesome team winning it all, I suggested we be #InIt2WinIt which later evolved into “In It 2 Nguyen It” after Daniel’s last name. Other team name ideas included Team Electrum (since Matthew, Daniel and I all play with Electrum paddles but we couldn’t do that because Fong plays with a Franklin) and Asian Sensations (which would have worked except for Matthew isn’t Asian). Someone on the Facebook suggested we could have been Matthew and the Asian Sensations, which is actually pretty clever and has a nice ring to it.
We actually did really well in our pool. The teams were randomly divided into two groups and we ended up in the same group as Tickle My Pickle, 3 Dinks and a Fireball, and 20/20. The match format is as follows:
— women’s doubles
— men’s doubles
— two rounds of mixed doubles
— optional team singles tie breaker (if needed)
The games are all one game to 15, win by 1 (normal scoring) — except for the singles round which is also one game to 15 but with rally scoring. A team can avoid the singles round by winning 3 out of the 4 games. But if it’s 2 and 2, then you go into a singles tie breaker. During pool play, we still played out the second mixed doubles games even if one team already won the first 3 games so that the remaining players could still get their game in; however, during the single elimination bracket play portion, we were running out of time of if one team sweeps the first 3 games then the other team just gets knocked out.
We came out on fire and won all four games — women’s doubles, men’s doubles, and both rounds of mixed doubles — for our first match of the day against Tickle My Pickle. I think it’s because Steve, who is not a morning person, wasn’t quite awake yet. Amazingly enough though, he was at CNP warming up a few minutes before 7 AM, which is completely unheard of — Steve usually doesn’t play any earlier than 9 or 10 AM. No singles for us that round!
Our next match was against 3 Dinks and Fireball. Fong and I lost to Tiffany and Missina but Daniel and Matthew won against Donnie and Bobbie. Before you play, there is a coin toss and the winner of the coin toss decides if they will release their mixed line up first or their singles line up (and the other team would do the opposite). Donnie decided they would release their mixed first, which meant our team was on the hook for releasing our singles line up first. We weren’t really all that concerned because we didn’t have to go into a singles tie breaker for our first match — but maybe we should have been, LOL. Their team had Bobby and Missina playing first. Since I usually struggle when playing against Donnie and Tiffany, we decided to have me and Matthew go first.
We really should have won but we had a ridiculous amount of unforced errors that game. I blame the fact that their team soundtrack was playing in the background. Here’s a video if you want to watch the massacre. It was brutal.
At this point, we were down 2-1 and we really need Fong and Daniel to win in order to force the singles tie breaker game. Luckily, Fong and Daniel came through, which kept us alive. The downside is that we had to release our singles player order first, which meant the other team got to dictate the match ups. They ended up winning the singles and taking the match.
Our final round robin match was against 20/20. That’s Rick, Jen T, Adam, and Jenny. Because there were only 3 round robin pool play matches, it made the seeding very interesting. A lot hung in the balance of that match. If we lost, our win-loss record would be tied with 3 Dinks and a Fireball but, since they beat us head-to-head, we would end up as #4 seed within our pool. However, if we won, then we would be tied with Tickle My Pickle who we beat head-to-head so then we would be the #1 seed. So wild.
Much like the match against 3 Dinks and a Fireball, out team lost women’s, won men’s, lost the first mixed doubles match up (me and Matthew), and won the second one (Fong and Daniel came through for us — again) to force the singles tie breaker. We kept our same order for singles — Matthew, Daniel, Fong and me — our strategy being to put our strongest singles players first because, with the rotation every four points, the weaker players may not get to play a second time (which would be a good thing).
Our team won singles and earned #1 seed for our pool. However, since the seeding was so random and out-of-whack anyway, it didn’t really mean anything other than determine who would play first in the single elimination bracket. Being #1 seed in Pool B meant we were playing the #4 seed of Pool A. But being number #4 seed didn’t really mean your team isn’t as strong because we could have easily been #4 in our pool depending on the outcome of that last match against 20/20.
Our ranking put us against Old Man and His Posse in the first round. This was actually the worse we’d ever played all day. We lost both our gender doubles games and now it came down to winning both of the mixed doubles matches, with the added pressure of the second mixed doubles game not being able to play if our first mixed doubles team loses because we were running out of time to finish the tournament (so Michael decided to start eliminating unnecessary games to save time). That said, since Fong and Daniel had been doing much better than me and Matthew, our team decided to have them go first. They had to play Jen and Han. While that game was going on, Matthew noticed that there was an open court, so he negotiated with Michael to let us play our mixed game as well. Since both games would be going on at the same time, it wouldn’t really prolong the match and this meant that Matthew and I could still get one extra game in no matter the outcome of Fong and Daniel’s game.
Matthew and I started with a huge deficit against Tim and MariAnn right off the bat. However, we made a good run after the side switch and came back to win it. All I could think of was that I could not let my teammates down. We desperately needed the singles tie breaker.
Funny thing is, though Matthew and I started after our other teammates had already played several points, we actually finished before Fong and Daniel. It was such a close game, which could have gone either way. In the end, Jen and Han prevailed which meant their team won 3-1 and therefore we did not get that singles tie breaker that we needed. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. LOL.
I think Brian was relieved because it gave us plenty of time to make our nail appointment, which we had already rescheduled after the Nahola team tournament ran long. Had my team done really well and made it to the championship, we would have had to miss our nail appointment — again. It all worked out for the best.
The tournament went on until about 5 PM so it ran two hours longer than scheduled. Michael had originally planned for us to play from 7 AM to 3 PM that day. In the end, the two teams that made it to the championship round were both #4 seeds in their respective pools which only affirms what I already knew — it’s pretty much a crap shoot. I mean, all of teams consisted of some really good players so it came down to the match ups and who played the cleanest games.
Old Man and His Posse (Han, Tim, MariAnn, and Jen) ended up winning the championship and own the bragging rights to being the first ever ICT MLP champions. The players who stuck around until the very end took this fun group picture. I wish we could have taken a group picture with all 32 players at the beginning because many of us had already left and our teams were eliminated from the tournament one at a time.
I had high hopes for my team at the start of the tournament but I am by no means upset about not winning. Win or lose, I’m happy either way as long as I get to play. I had an absolute blast playing in our first ever local MLP event and the team singles, which we tried so hard to avoid for every match, actually turned out to be my favorite of all the games. It was such a fun day and I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Here’s a highlight video I made of that day:
Brian got a few games on the GoPro (before we ran out of space) and I have those up on YouTube here. Follow the link if you want to watch them.
Until next time. GNG.
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Meredith’s Visit
Posted on November 30, 2021 by Ching under Community, Hobbies.
Meredith Novy was in town last weekend (she’s currently working in Baltimore, MD) so her boyfriend Brian Harshman brought several people together at Chicken N Pickle on Sunday afternoon for some pickleball fun. Some people couldn’t make it (Ev Kim had volleyball and Anna Le had to stay home and watch Sophia) but we got enough players to fill three courts for a fun ladder.
Debbie and Dave Fanning, Tiffany and Donnie Lesperance, Michael Harris, Lori Below, Karen Fox, Kim Knotts, Fong Witte, Brian Harshman, and Meredith Novy (our guest of honor) came out to play. Here are some pictures that we took at the end of our play session.
But the fun didn’t end there. After our pickleball session, a bunch of us went up to the Snowbound Ski Lodge (trip #2 for me) because several people hadn’t experienced it yet. The Snowbound Ski Lodge is located at Chicken N Pickle’s rooftop and it’s the perfect place for a holiday gathering.
It was so great to have Meredith back, even just for a weekend. It’s so much fun to play with and against such a talented pickleball player. We had a great time visiting but also hearing how difficult it is to get good pickleball play in Baltimore made me realize just how special our pickleball community is in Wichita.
Cheers to the best group of picklers ever! Can’t wait to have Meredith back! Only a few more months to go. Until next time. GNG.
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Nahola Team Tournament
Posted on November 28, 2021 by Ching under Community, Hobbies.
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Karen Fox, Ramon Lozano, Bo Tolbert and I played on the team tournament at Nahola last weekend. I played in the event last year and recalled how much fun I had so, when Karen and Ramon invited me to be on their team, I immediately said yes. Bo, who was my partner in the ICT Fall-out pickleball tournament, agreed to be my mixed partner. |
The day of the tournament, November 20, happened to be Ramon’s birthday so, to surprise him, I got “EVERYBODY LOVES RAMON” shirts made for our team. It’s kind of an inside joke because they kept butchering his name at the PC Smash tournament last month. They were pronouncing it “Ray-mon” instead of “Rah-mon” with a short A sound.
Karen got a matching cake made. It was delicious!
There were seven amazing teams that played in the tournament. Typically, Kayla only allows six teams because there are only two courts. Allowing for a seventh team made for a really long day and quite a bit of waiting in between matches. We started at 9 AM and didn’t finish until 5 PM, which people ended up leaving near the end because of other commitments (we all thought we would be done by 3 o’clock – Brian and I had a nail appointment at 4 PM that we ended up rescheduling for another day). It was still a lot of fun despite all the waiting and even though we didn’t get to complete all of the matches.
Here are some pictures of the teams that participated in the team event.
Steve Vetter, Jen Reifschneider, Jen Tiano, and Jon Maugans (the winning team)
Michael McLemore, Greta Siemens, Denise Brinkworth, and Mike Adams (second place team)
Zach Nguyen, Fong Witte, Amy Jaramillo, and Matthew Rochat
Donnie and Tiffany Lesperance, Kimberly Howe, and Mark Armstrong
Mike Maloney, Shawna Geist, and Cindy and Ed Egan
Chris Wilson, Ian Carr, Michelle Dreiling, and Sharon Steimel also played but I missed getting a picture of their team. I actually didn’t get the pics of the first and second place teams. I stole those pics from the Nahola Facebook page. LOL.
Anyway, this format is really fun. I wouldn’t mind doing it again but probably not if there are seven teams because that was the reason for the extended waits between matches. Seven teams would work if you had three courts.
We are doing something similar at Chicken N Pickle next weekend on December 4. It’s going to be a team event patterned after Major League Pickleball. I’m playing just because it’s a different format and I was want to try something new and different. I’m kind of excited for it and will let you know how it goes. We might even livestream it. Stay tuned!
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Another Weekend, Another Tournament
Posted on November 19, 2021 by Ching under Community, Hobbies, Travel.
I traveled to Great Bend last weekend for the Turkey Classic. I hadn’t been playing indoors on wood gym floors much over the last year or so but my friend Ramon Lozano is one of my favorite mixed doubles partners so, when he asked, I couldn’t say no. We had dinner plans with Madison and Lindsay that Saturday night but mixed was scheduled for Sunday so I accepted the invitation thinking I could do the dinner and then just drive over and back on Sunday.
My friend Sandi Dobbs (mother in law of Mason McCanless, another pickleball friend) invited me to play in women’s doubles. I was already going to be there for mixed anyway and there weren’t many teams so we were trying to help them out. Plus, Sandi said I could spend the night at her house so I wouldn’t have to drive back and forth on both days. Then, come to find out, there weren’t that many women’s teams signed up so they were going to consolidate all of the play to Saturday. Anyway, it was a bit of a mess but it all worked out.
If I were only playing mixed I probably could have left Wichita around 10 o’clock because mixed wasn’t until the afternoon and it was only a two hour drive. With gender doubles starting at 8:30 AM, Karen and I left her house at 5 in the morning to get there with plenty of time to find the school and settle in.
I told Karen I’d been waking up in the middle of the night at 2 and 3 AM because I hadn’t been sleeping well lately. Little did I know it was all training for the day of our early morning drive to Great Bend.
Karen Fox, Jen Reifschneider, Sandi Dobbs and me
The day before the tournament, Karen’s women’s doubles partner Janelle Lindeman backed out and so Karen ended up getting Jen to fill in. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise because she got a partner upgrade.
There were some last minute women’s sign ups so instead of having to play with the men, the women ended up with their own division. There were eight teams that were divided into two separate brackets after pool play.
Jen Tiano and Jenny Cole (holding the frozen turkeys in the above photo) won the top women’s bracket with Karen and Jen taking second (pumpkin pie filling prize) and me and Sandi in third (stuffing prize). They didn’t actually send you home with the food. Those were just props for the photo. But you did get a gift card so you could buy your own food. I’m actually grateful for the gift card because I don’t really like stuffing that much. LOL.
There were twice as many men’s doubles teams as there were women’s so they ended up with multiple brackets. These were the top guys: Chris Heck and Klee Watchous (first place), Ramon Lozano and Jeret Johnson (second place), and Justin McClung and Shawn Clark (third place).
There were 20 or so mixed doubles teams that played in the afternoon so there was a gold bracket, silver bracket, and bronze bracket. I’m not sure what happened in the other brackets but Wichita swept the gold bracket with Jen and Chris taking first, Jenny and Klee taking second, and Karen and Bo (not pictured because had to leave to deal with his car troubles) taking third. Ramon and I finished in fourth, losing to Karen and Bo in the back draw.
We joked that Chris, Jenny, Jen, and Klee flew in (yes, Klee flew the four of them in) just to do some exhibition matches. LOL. Chris joked that the drive from his house in West Wichita to the hangar in Benton was half of the drive time to Great Bend, which a little exaggerated but somewhat accurate. The drive would have been 2.5 hours from my house but it was only a little less than 2 hours from Karen’s house. I’m glad she decided to ride with me because it made the drive go by super quick. It also gave the two of us an opportunity to catch up.
Tomorrow Karen, Ramon, Bo, and I are playing in the team tournament at Nahola. I’ve only ever done it once and it was a complete fluke. I wasn’t part of a team but rather a last minute fill in. The teams this time are stacked with great players. It should be a super fun, competitive time.
Until next time. GNG.
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No Medals but Had a Ton of Fun
Posted on November 18, 2021 by Ching under Community, Hobbies, Travel.
Some people bring back medals from their out of town tournaments. I bring back new friends which, in a way, is even cooler than medals. One of my favorite things about going to pickleball tournaments is making new friends and reconnecting with friends I’ve made from past tournaments. It’s a lot like ZINCON in that way.
Brian and I originally planned to drive down to Oklahoma on Thursday night because I wasn’t sure what time I was playing on Friday but, when I found out that our division wasn’t starting until 11:45 am, we decided to cancel our Thursday night stay and only spend one night at the hotel to save money. We were originally going to take Saki with us but then realized we wouldn’t be able to take her inside the tennis facility so she ended up getting boarded which ended up using the money we saved on our hotel stay.
This tournament was set up differently in that tournaments are typically held on Saturday and Sunday. This one held events on Friday and Saturday. Gender doubles was on Friday and then mixed was on Saturday.
I played with Jen Reifschneider in women’s doubles. I’m glad she agreed to play because I originally only had mixed lined up. This was only our second time playing together. We played together for the first time in ICT Fall-out back in September. We did pretty well (getting further than any of the other local women’s doubles teams in our division) and I had a lot of fun playing with her. I had high hopes for this tournament but also knew that it would be challenging because it was a sanctioned tournament and typically players play their actual level (or sometimes lower) instead of playing up.
We had the misfortune of playing against the gold medal team in our first round and then just had a rough go during our second match. I felt like we really should have medaled because even the gold medal team felt like we were their main competition (we were the only team to take them to 3 games, until the championship match) so I think we were just unlucky.
Anyway, once we were out, I took advantage of the time to catch up with friends like Michael McLemore who I only ever see at pickleball tournaments. I also enjoyed watching everyone play and taking a few pics.
We had dinner at Industry that evening. Our group consisted of over 20 people. Most of us were from Wichita but some were from Hays. We also made some new friends. I invited the two girls who won gold in our division to dinner because (a) I had no bitter feelings at all, and (b) they were super nice. I ran into Jenna earlier that day in the restroom and she was super complementary about how Jen and I played. She didn’t gloat and wasn’t a jerk so I invited her and Danae and Danae’s husband Barrett to join our group for dinner. Incidentally, she lives close to the restaurant and Danae and Barrett were both staying with her so it worked out perfectly. We did have to add another table and a couple more chairs but we made it work and everyone seemed to have a great time visiting with one another over dinner. Pickleball peeps are the best!
We just keep adopting people into the Wichita Pickleball family. LOL.
Here are some pictures of our food.
I tried to get as many food pics as I could but it was just too difficult because everyone was so far away from me.
Brian and I got a couple of the charcuterie plates to share with everyone as we waited for everyone to arrive to order dinner. As is what typically happens, we ordered way too much food. Brian and I only ate half of our pizza and we couldn’t do anything with the rest of it because we were staying at a hotel (Avid) and going home the next day.
Speaking of our hotel, I got to meet Alvaro Terron Gonzalez aka the Spanish Sensation or Jay 2.0 at breakfast the next morning because he just happened to be staying at the same hotel. He is super nice and graciously agreed to take a photo with me. I think he is still getting use to the idea of being famous.
Brian says he think I am more famous than Alvaro. This never would have occurred to me had this guy not asked to take a photo with me when I was at Riverside Tennis Center last week. He said “his mom is a huge fan” – his words not mine. Maybe Brian is on to something and maybe I am really more famous than I realize?
I am usually the one fan-girling so to have someone ask to get a pic with me kind of made me feel special. We’ve come full circle, friends.
And speaking of full circle, my friend Justin (one of our friends from Hays) recently posted this on Facebook. Naturally, I got a kick out of it. Alvaro is super nice. I found out that he is good friends with Michael Douglas, my mixed partner for that tournament. Any time that he wasn’t playing he came to watch us play.
He was watching when we played against Kali Wilson and Kyle VonAhn and saw our heartbreaking 15-13 consolation bracket loss which ended our tournament run. I thanked him for coming to watch us and he said it was fun to watch and then also added, “Too bad Michael didn’t show up today!” to mess with Michael – LOL – who was standing right there. Alvaro is not only nice and handsome but he also has a great sense of humor, and he is climbing the ranks of my list of favorite people.
Speaking of Michael, here’s a picture of him in the awesome team shirt that I had made for us. I had to make a different shirt (rather than a Wichita Pickleball one like mine and Jen’s) because Michael is from Tulsa, OK area.
I think I did great on the shirt design because the tournament director Gene Click totally got a kick out of it. #NailedIt — I wish there was a prize for best dressed because Michael and I looked amazing in our team uniforms.
You are probably wondering how I got teamed up with Michael for the SMASH 2021 tournament. That is a really cool story actually. We met through the ICT Classic pickleball tournament back in June. He and his partner Deana Holman sent me and my partner Mason McCanless into the consolation bracket on their way to taking bronze.
Even though we lost that match it was quite memorable. He said he was amazed how Mason and I managed to win the first game 14-12. I’m pretty sure we were down 0-8 or some insanely huge deficit like that. Michael said was super impressed at the significant amount of mental fortitude it took for Mason and I to turn that game around and actually win it. As you can see from the screen shot above, we lost games 2 and 3 pretty decisively (11-5, 11-5) probably because it took all of strength and focus to win that first game. LOL.
I think Mason and I would have made a deeper tournament run had we not encountered the silver and bronze medal teams so early in the tournament. That was unfortunate. But, anyway, those were the circumstances with which I met Michael. I guess I must have made quite an impression because he invited me to team up for a future tournament.
Being a lower level player, I was naturally super excited to have someone of Michael’s caliber invite me to play. I was like, “Wow. Seriously?” I didn’t even care what the tournament was or when it was. I was all in.
I had my mixed partner lined up months in advance but didn’t have a women’s doubles partner but, as luck would have it, Jen Reifschneider just happened to be available so I managed to snag an amazing women’s doubles partner too. If I was going to podium at a sanctioned event, this was the one. This is the first tournament ever that I’ve ever had teammates who are much higher level than me.
I didn’t come home with any medals but it was such a huge honor playing with both Michael and Jen. And, I also got some compliments on my game. I mean, I could have played 3.0 and 3.5 (because my ratings in women’s and mixed are actually low enough that I could have) and medaled rather than playing 4.0 in both events but how much fun would that have been? Plus, Michael says I belong in 4.0 so I guess I’m going to continue playing 4.0 for a while until I make some podiums.
Progress is slow as molasses but I’m still truckin’… until the next tournament. GNG.
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