Archive for "Community"
National Pickleball League in Wichita
Posted on August 19, 2023 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
I had the best time when National Pickleball League (NPL) came to town for one of the NPL tour stops. We had a couple of pros from the OKC Punishers team stay with us – Carrina de Vera and Jenny Marcos. I’ve known Jenny for some time now through mutual friends and then it was my first time meeting Carrina. They are both Filipino so it was perfect.
Here are some pictures from the NPL kickoff party on Friday night. Jenny is in pink. Carrina is in black. The red-haired lady is Carrina’s wife, Deb.
This is Mark Milner, OKC Punishers GM and top male player along with Jaime Oncins (below). These two men are probably the most handsome men’s doubles duo in the entire league.
Two full days of competition followed the opening night party. Saturday play featured OKC Punishers vs. Indy Drivers. They split the matches and had to go into a super exciting teambreaker.
Check out this awesome scorpion that Jenny hits early in the game.
Karen Fox and Vickie Hancock were two of our best volunteers.
Day two pictures next…
Jen Reifschneider was such a trooper. She volunteered on both days.
Brian Evenson was on hand to take photos all weekend.
No one was volunteering for broadcast booth help so I signed Brian up for it on Sunday and he really enjoyed his volunteer job. It was right up his alley.
I was court monitor on court 6, which was actually a great volunteer job for me because I got to watch amazing matches all morning. I caught a snap of Jenny taking a nap in between matches. It had been a long two days.
It was a busy weekend but I had so much fun. It was great to see and meet all the senior pros and watch them play. I can’t wait until NPL returns next year.
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More Pickleball
Posted on July 9, 2023 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
Pictures from Senior Services of Wichita’s Picklepalooza event last month.
And then, that same week, a bunch of us went on a road trip to Emporia for the Wichita Pickleball vs. Emporia Pickleball Club challenge.
We played at Reeble Park from about 9 AM to noon and then our hosts made reservations at the Pizza Ranch for lunch. Some players didn’t stay due to other commitments but several of us went and had lunch.
And then we stopped by Bazaar Cattle Crossing on the way home which prompted me to make this fun video clip.
That was such a fun weekend. I cannot wait to do it all again!
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iPN Nation Builders are Finally Here
Posted on July 3, 2023 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
I’ve been working to bring the iPickle Nation Nation Builders to Wichita since the beginning of the year and they’re finally here. We had the first one on June 11 and participation has steadily increased ever since. The format is super fun and guarantees a lot of games — six in the round robin pool play and additional games in the single elimination bracket. There winners and medals so it’s like playing in a mini tournament every weekend. The end of the series the top male and female players for each division get a free tournament entry into one of the super fun pickleball tournaments that iPickle Nation runs throughout the year.
June 11 Winners:
June 18 Winners:
June 25 Winners:
We have a break this weekend because of the upcoming 4th of July holiday. The next session is on July 9. It’s actually already full but the other six future sessions are still open for registration. You can sign up here. For sessions that are full, you can sign up for the waiting list here. You have to come out and play in one of these sessions. They are so fun. Hope to see you at the next one!
The revolution is here. It’s time to join the Nation!
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Picklemania MMXXIII
Posted on June 13, 2023 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
The pickleball tournament fundraiser for my Rotary club just keeps on growing. I remember the very first year we had it. We weren’t sure how successful it would be but we knew we needed to do something that spring because we couldn’t have our Haus of Brews fundraising event due to the COVID pandemic. We planned to have the tournament in May 2021 but then the weather didn’t cooperate so we had to move the tournament to June. It was so freakin’ hot!
We had much better weather the following year but it got really windy in the afternoon and one of the canopy tents flew into one of the courts. Thankfully, no one was hurt. Last year was the first year that we changed the event to a team format (instead of just a normal doubles pickleball tournament) but it was a completely made up team format that I came up with based on Wrestlemania. LOL. You could tag in and out in between points (not during because that would be way too crazy and completely unsafe). Anyway, it was weird but fun. We had 16 teams participate last year.
This year we ended up with 24 teams but we still only had 8 courts so I had to get seriously creative. We kept the team format but change it to MLPlay (rally scoring) because it takes less time and the match durations are more predictable. We also did games to 15 (instead of 21) to further reduce the amount of time to complete each match. We kept the dream breaker tie breaker round because it added a fun, unique element, but still kept the game to 15, win by 1.
Here’s a good summary of this year’s tournament format:
Anyway, the format worked out great. With 6-team pools in the round robin pool play, each team was able to play every other team in their pool. After pool play, the teams went on to 3 different brackets (Elite, Advanced, and Intermediate) based on their results. We started at 8 AM and wrapped up around 5 PM. We were right on schedule. Couldn’t have planned it better!
This is what the pool play schedule looked like with 24 teams and only 8 courts. We basically assigned 2 courts for each pool. This meant there were bye rounds but it worked out fine because it gave people an opportunity to visit, grab snacks/drinks, go to the restroom, etc.
Here’s a fun video that my friend Jonathan Thorne made using pictures and drone footage from the event. I feel like we really exceeded all expectations this year. So much work went into though, as it always does. I did get to salvage some signage that I made last year like these ones.
I’m glad I thought ahead and didn’t put a year on them so we can recycle them for use year after year.
An improvement we had this year is a bag sponsor. Our friends at Bodyworx Physical Therapy provided us with string bags and player swag (coozies and pens) along with sponsoring a team. It was great because then we had a bag to put the players’ tournament shirts and other swag (stickers, overgrips, etc.) in. Definitely a step up from the paper bags that I delivered everything in last year.
Here are some fun pics from the event…
I’m so glad we finally got to play with Tanner Rice (red-head on the left) because the times that Ramon (Lozano), Katie (Merrill), and I have played in team events we’ve had to pick up a different fourth team member because Tanner wasn’t available for one reason or another. Kyle Rinck played with us in the DUPR team event we did back in December in North Kansas City and Jared Smart played with us in the “One Last Dink” team event at the Pickle Club.
I am so grateful for Brian, who ran the tournament so I could play. Kyle Starkel came out in the afternoon and helped, too.
Our team missed making the Elite 8 bracket by one stinkin’ game! We were in a 3-way tie with Bodyworx (Jen Tiano, Mike Ellison, and David and Lori Belew) and Mid-Court Crisis (Ling Wei Kong, Natalie Lubbers, Noi Sourinthone, and Scott Wolford) in our pool. We each had one loss (4-1 tied record for all 3 teams) and they were to one another so we had to count games won. Mid-Court Crisis won 16 total games. Bodyworx won 15 total games. We won 14 games. Only the top 2 teams of each pool went on to Elite 8. Middle 2 teams went to Advanced bracket. And the bottom 2 teams went to the Intermediate bracket.
We ended up winning the Advanced (middle) bracket, but pretty whichever team in our pool didn’t advance to Elite 8 was going to win that middle bracket no matter what because the matchups were sooo close. We had an amazing team!
These were the pool play groups. In each of the groups, the first 2 teams listed advanced to the Elite 8 bracket. Except for in our group, which had a 3-way tie (Bodyworx and Mix-Court Crisis ended up advancing). In pool C, Team Equilibrium and FORVIS both had a tied record going into their final match so the winner of that ended up advancing to Elite 8. Equilibrium prevailed. FORVIS ended up in the Advanced bracket with us.
These were the other medalists:
Intermediate – Drop It Like Itz Hot
Frank and Kim McCormick, Tiffany and Donnie Lesperance
Elite 8 – Chicken N Pickle (No surprise!)
Michael Harris, Kim Blackman, Jack Oxler, Lindsey Vermillion
You can read more about this year’s Picklemania tournament here. More pictures here. That’s all for now. Until next year, GNG.
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Ryan’s Birthday Weekend
Posted on April 26, 2023 by Ching under Community, Events, Pickleball.
I just love when friends come to visit. A few weeks ago we had a surprise visit from the Sagers. They were in town the same weekend as the It’s a Big Dill pickleball tournament at the Wichita Country Club. They were supposed to stay at the Egans but the Egans were in Tulsa for a concert so they weren’t in town. They made a game time decision to stay with us instead. It was quite spontaneous but everyone’s always welcome at our house.
They ended up meeting us at WCC and hanging out for a bit. We had early supper at Wichita Brewing Company, one of my most favorite pizza places. They also happen to have great craft beer so it’s a winning combination.
I love when the Sagers visit because they are so fun. After supper, we hung out at home and played cards. They taught us how to play Pitch. I love learning new things and I love card games so I can’t wait to play it again.
It was a pretty quick visit for the Sagers. They stayed over on Saturday night and left on Sunday. But then later that same week, Ramon Lozano came into town. He didn’t have any specific plans, other than I think he wanted to get some practice time with Kyle Starkel. They both played in a “Bring Your Own Partner” DUPR session I had at the Pickle Club that I organized at Zach Nguyen’s request.
While he was in town, he got invited to a bunch of pickleball games and also Ryan Kellenbarger’s birthday celebrations. Yes, celebrations with an S because they were celebrating all weekend long. Anyway, Ramon is probably one of the most spontaneous people I know. He doesn’t really plan too far ahead. So he arrived on Wednesday and stayed through Sunday — without any pre-planning. I think this was the longest length of time he had ever stayed with us. I was actually surprised he had enough clothes with him.
I love cake so I volunteered to bring the cake for the pickleball celebration.
Solo pic of Ryan with the cake above and a picture of our group below.
Later that night, we met up with the gang for more birthday festivities.
Here’s a pic of Ryan and Ramon with our friend Ty Richardson.
Ryan with Ian Carr and Austin Jones.
Group picture of those who stayed for dancing. Jared Smart and Kendra Wicks came for dinner but didn’t stick around. They left shortly after Brian and I arrived.
Dawn Hazlewood with Ramon and Ryan.
Last pic is an obligatory selfie of Brian and me. Cos, you know, we just have to do it. Until next time, GNG.
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