Missing Out Because of Back Issues
Posted on June 12, 2026 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
InPickle Nation returned to Wichita a couple of weeks ago with their Under Armour Championship Series the Dink Minor Leagues MiLP v3, three-player team tournament. You might remember the team tournament that I played in a couple of months ago when our friend Jim Tsen was in town.
This is a similar event, backed by the Dink Minor Leagues, but the teams consist of only three players or the same gender instead of four — two men and two women. The game format is the same – rally scoring to 21 – but matches consist of only three games so there are no singles dream breakers.
I was super excited to play in it so, when it was first announced back in March, I grabbed a couple of friends (Anna Le and Chanell Nguyen) and got us signed up with “Whatever” as our team name. Our team name is kind of a joke because when we were trying to come up with ideas for team names, both of them were pretty much like “Whatever is good with me.”
As you know, I have been plagued with all sorts of health issues not the least of which is my back problem that started a little over a month ago, so I didn’t even get to play. But that’s not the half of it. Our team went through so many replacements and substitutions that no original team members actually played come tournament day. We truly lived up to our “Whatever” team name. LOL.
You wouldn’t believe it if I told so I just had to chart it to explain just exactly how wild this roller coaster journey has been.
End of March, we formed our team with me, Anna, and Chanell. Shortly after, Anna’s daughter Sophia is diagnosed with leukemia and so she asked to withdraw. We ended up picking Monica McGehee as replacement.
While I was at the US Open in Florida, I heard from Chanell. She also has to withdraw because our friend Angelynn’s wedding is at 1 PM that day. Obviously, we’re not counting on getting eliminated early so that was a definite deal-breaker. Anyway, I found out that Jen Refschneider’s (aka Chef Jen) DUPR rating had dropped below 4.6 and she was eligible to play in our group. Texted her immediately but didn’t hear back for a couple of days.
I was looking at the team rosters and found that Katie McKee (who was originally interested in playing DUPR 15 level with Molly Spring and Greta Siemens) registered to play in DUPR 13 with Jen Tiano and Susie Ternes. My next text was to Molly because I knew she was interested in play and no longer had a team. I did hear back from her right away so, at this point, our team now consisted of Molly, Monica, and me. I eventually did hear back from Chef Jen and she said she was available if I still needed someone. We had already picked up Molly so we no longer had a vacancy on our team but the division itself still had one team spot left. Jen who was interested in playing, asked me for Jill Reyes’ number, and now the two of them were trying to form a team.
In the meantime, Molly, Monica, and I grabbed Fong Witte as our fourth for a practice session and that’s when I realized that there was no way that my back would hold up to a full day of playing. I couldn’t barely muster finishing one game. We asked Fong if she was available to play on that day and so then it was decided that she would take my spot.
Another team finally entered and took the final opening so DUPR 13 was full up. Chef Jen and Jill’s team didn’t get it in time. Tami Racine, Krista Crawford, and Huyen Nguyen (aka my first pickleball daughter) were also trying to enter but there was no spot for them either.
I did find out later that Cindy Egan ended up picking Chef Jen to replace Megan Nighswonger, who had also gotten invited to Angelynn’s wedding. Susie Ternes had to replace Jen Tiano due to a knee injury and ended up grabbing Jill, so in the end, Chef Jen were both able to play — just on different teams.
A couple of days before the tournament, Molly told me that her father was throwing a surprise retirement party for her mother-in-law that same day and so now she had a conflict. Anyway, I knew that Huyen wanted to play because she was part of a team that couldn’t enter due to our sold-out situation, so tapped her to replace Molly. In the end, team “Whatever” consisted of Huyen, Fong, and Monica — none of whom were original team members. Wild is an understatement.
The event was super fun and the ladies really showed out. We filled all 12 courts with 24 teams in the morning. There were 8 teams each competing in DUPR 9, DUPR 11, and DUPR 15.
Take a Chill PLL (Parrish Gumeringer, Liz Ellison, and Laurie Newton) took down DUPR 9 division.
Soy Milk (Uyen Dang, Senda Vu, and Abbie Welu) took down DUPR 11 division.
We’ve Got JoKeS (Jill Reyes, Katie McKee, and Susie Ternes) took down the DUPR 13 division.
Be Like Water (Khan Pham, Doan Nguyen, and Michael Cheung) took down the DUPR 11 division.
JKS (Branden Stephenson replaced Jason McCutchen, Keith Lietzke, and Saif Khan) took down the DUPR 13 division.
The men started at 11 AM, as the ladies groups were winding down. Despite there being very few mens teams, I think they still had a good team. There was great competition overall.
Of course, I was there all day to assist with the tournament and support Duane with whatever he needed so it wasn’t like I completely missed it. I was bummed I couldn’t play, though. Playing is way more fun than spectating.
Special shout out to our official Regina Pinkston who came to hang with us all day.
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