It’s a Big Dill Pickleball Tournament

Posted on April 24, 2023 by Ching under Community, Events, Pickleball.

The It’s a Big Dill Pickleball Tournament at the Wichita Country Club which benefits the Wichita Children’s Home fell on April 1 this year. This was my third year helping with the tournament and every year it’s a little bit different and every year we encounter different challenges. Last year one of our biggest challenges was having so many teams (four divisions worth) and not having enough courts. The WCC team tapes up 8 temporary courts to supplement the 3 permanent ones so we always have just 11 courts.

The first year that I helped, we only budgeted half a day and the tournament ran until a little after 1 pm. I couldn’t stay that year because I had a Saturday morning Aqua Zumba class at the time that I couldn’t get out of (or it might have been some other commitment that I had later in the day). I remember I was only there to get it kicked off and then I had to leave.

Last year we factored in lunch and allowed for play until 2 pm. Despite having a limited number of courts, everything ran smoothly and on schedule. I remember looking at my watch as we were pulling out of the parking lot to leave and it read 2:01 pm. That meant we were able to award medals and start tear down in time for everything to wrap up by 2 pm as planned.

This year they wanted me to work an exhibition match into the tournament schedule. Two of our top pros Jay Devilliers and Patrick Smith were being auctioned off at the kick off party on Friday night and the winners of the live auction would get to play with them during the lunch intermission at the tournament on Saturday. Because of the exhibition match, we added an extra hour to the schedule and planned to wrap everything up by 3 pm.

But that wasn’t even the biggest challenge I had to face. I always like to print all my round robin schedules in Excel ahead of time so I’m not having to cross-reference team numbers against team names. Well, about 15 minutes before the start of the tournament, I found that we had an extra team in the men’s doubles division. One of the sponsors didn’t sign up to play in the tournament ahead of time but showed up that morning. The sponsors donate a lot of money so we couldn’t turn them away. I basically had to scrap my pre-printed worksheet for the men’s doubles and just used a generic team round robin from printyourbrackets.com for the men’s division. At least I only had to do that for one division and mixed and women’s didn’t have to be modified.

Amazingly enough, everything once again ran super smoothly and on schedule. Bryce and Michael from the WCC were fabulous at keeping things going and helping me put matches on as soon as courts became available. We were able to finish all the round robin play by noon and start the exhibition match as the players enjoyed their lunch.

The exhibition match was a nice addition to the tournament day. Not only did it raise $10,000 for the Wichita Children’s Home (both of the winning bidders paid $5,000 each to play with Jay and Pat) but it also gave the players a nice break for lunch so that they didn’t feel like they had to rush through their food.

Here’s a link to the exhibition match video for those who want to watch it. Below are pictures of the winners of this year’s tournament.

Mixed Doubles

First Place – Matt Nola and Jackie Hall
Second Place – Dave and Lori Belew
Third Place – Tanner and Britney Blaske

Men’s Doubles

First Place – Mitchell Born and Klee Watchous
Second Place – Zach Nguyen and Noi Sourinthone
Third Place – Ron McMahon and Daniel Ritchie

Advanced Women’s Doubles

First Place – Karen Fox and Vickie Hancock
Second Place – Beth Fischer and Zoe Rohr
Third Place – Chandi Bongers and Krista Crawford

Intermediate Women’s Doubles

First Place – Krista Onofrio and Kristin Conrad
Second Place – Brenda Bishop and Margaret Dechant
Third Place – Trish Mueller and Karen Taylor

So grateful to our wonderful pickleball community and generous players for supporting the Wichita Children’s Home pickleball tournament. We had a another successful event. I’m already looking forward to next year!

Replies to "It’s a Big Dill Pickleball Tournament"

Ryan’s Birthday Weekend on April 26, 2023

[…] 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 […]

« Lunch at Wine Dive « this post » Ryan’s Birthday Weekend »

FLIP + CHING

Relishing Every. Single. Moment.