Holiday Mixed League Recap
Posted on December 23, 2021 by Ching under Hobbies.
As many of you know, I love playing with new people so this past league session I was super excited to have the opportunity to team up with Dustin Herman. I totally would have played with Jamie again because I felt like I had the best odds of winning league with him as my partner. We were #1 seed going into the league tournament the previous session but he was out of town for the tournament so we didn’t really get to put our team to the test.
So anyway, I asked Jamie if he wanted to play in mixed again but he said he was undecided because Klee Watchous asked him to play in men’s super competitive. I was waiting to sign up until I heard back from him. In the meantime, Colby Fugit and Dustin Herman were already signed up but Colby got mono so she would have have missed at least two of the five weeks so she asked me to take her place. I’m all about playing with different people so I sent her $50 over Venmo and took her spot.
Ironically, super competitive didn’t have enough teams so that league was canceled this last session. Jamie and I totally could have played together had I signed us up before all the spots were filled but I kinda sensed that he wasn’t feeling up to it so I didn’t want to sign up with someone who didn’t really want to play.
I absolutely loved playing with Dustin. On our first night of league, we played against Steve Vetter and Jen Tiano (Steve and Jen) and Ian Carr and Jen Reifschneider (Volley Llamas) and beat both teams in 2 games. Those were two of the toughest teams in league and we were able to beat them on our first time playing together. The session looked very promising.
Of course, most people don’t really try as hard until the league tournament night so that was the true test. We ended up being seeded #3 going into the tournament, which wasn’t really ideal. Byes are kind of hard because, for your first match, you end up playing against a team that’s already got one win under their belt. I wouldn’t have minded being a #1 or #2 seed with a bye because those teams are not as tough as the other ones but in the mixed competitive league the top six teams are all equally tough. Any of those teams could really win the league. It just depends on who makes the least amount of errors or who’s on fire that night.
We ended up having to play Scott Wolford and Jenny Cole (J & S) as our first match, which is unfortunate because they are super tough. We actually lost to them in pool play. Not only are they the defending champions from the last session, but they practice and drill together daily and they almost exclusively play with one another so they have tons of experience as mixed doubles team.
After that match we dropped to the opportunity bracket where we won against Bread and Butter (this would have been Adam and Kristina Korfhage but Daryn Hayner was subbing for Adam who was out of town that night) and also Double Trouble (Zach Nguyen and Fong Witte) before meeting back up with Volley Llamas, who were sent to the back draw by Steve and Jen. We ended up losing to Volley Llamas which ended our tournament run.
Steve and Jen won league this session which is pretty familiar territory for these two. They’ve won this league once or twice before and when they don’t win, they are usually in the finals. Here’s a video of some of the matches that night if you’d like to watch them. I always like to rewatch these and try to learn from them.
I am so grateful for the opportunity to play with Dustin. He is so much fun to play with. We got a few freebies off his serves and his drives which helped a ton. Colby is back this next session so I will be facing off against him at some point. As much fun as he is to play with, I have to say that I will probably have even more fun playing against him. I just thrive on playing against players who love to drive the ball and drive it hard. I enjoy using their own power and spin against them.
I’ll be teaming up with Tony Mathews this time. This is a new team up but we were actually supposed to play together the previous session when Jamie ended up taking Tony’s place last minute because he fell through. This time Tony and I are also playing in the Monday night Nahola league together so we will get to prepare for Tuesday night league by playing on Monday nights. It is shaping up to be another promising session. I can’t wait to get started!
Will let you know how it goes in a few weeks. Until then, GNG.
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