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Fall 2007, Berkeley
 

The 2007-2008 WCRC season is off to a HUGE start as we had 55 players from 10 different schools compete in our Fall tournament at Berkeley. We are growing every year, and at this tournament we had 4 people from LA county, 3 players from San Luis Obispo, and Dylan Carr from San Diego who competed in the USRA Collegiate Nationals earlier this year!

Our women’s draw continues to grow as we had our largest group to date: 15 women! Danielle Evans (UC Santa Cruz) and Amy Benson (UC Davis) – both new to the WCRC – played a dramatic 3 game match for the Women's final, with almost every rally bringing applause. After losing the first game, Danielle was able to squeak out a win in the second, and in between the second game and the tie break – buzzing with energy and emotion – she gave us our quote of the tournament. As she said with a smile:

It’s my birthday ... I have to win,
there’s no other option!

Danielle was able to win the close tie break, but things are going to be very interesting this year.

Alejandro Ron from Sacramento State won Men’s Division I ! He started playing with the WCRC last year, won the Mar 2007 WCRC tourney at SJSU to finish last year’s season, and is continuing where he left off ... He is going to be hard to beat this season!

Jake Abernathy (Cal) - a long time WCRC veteran - won Division II !  Jake finished around the middle of the pack at last year's Berkeley tourney, and now has no where to go but to Div I. Stephen Hibbs (Stanford) is new to the WCRC and finished a close second ... Welcome to the WCRC and be ready for the next tourney!

The Men's Division III is growing, and we split the division into two groups. Siva Gunda (UC Davis) and David Wong (Cal) won their respective Division III groups, and played to be the winner of the entire Division III. Siva won Division III, and he also finished around the middle of the pack at last year's Berkeley tourney ... Great improvement, and get ready for Division II at the UC Davis tourney.

As we gain new players, others graduate and move on. Carlos Penagos played for a number of years in the juniors as he was growing up, but hung up his racquetball when he moved to a new area. Mid way through college, he found the WCRC and started playing racquetball competitively again 2 years ago.

In his first WCRC tourney – Feb. 2006 UC Davis – Carlos won Division II. Last year at our Oct. 2006 Berkeley tourney, Carlos finished 7th in Division I. In this Nov. 2007 Berkeley tourney, Carlos finally made it to the finals, but lost to Alejandro Ron. Carlos has been very successful in racquetball tournaments outside of the WCRC, and he won Men’s Under 24 A in the 2007 California State Singles Championships! We hope to continue to see Carlos on the courts.

THANK YOU EVERYONE for your patience with the shorter format for the games in the earlier rounds. We are growing and may need to find a larger venue for next year's tournament! We have every intention of using facilities that are large enough to handle our tournaments and have games to 15 points in all of the rounds, while keeping costs to a minimum. We were able to secure an additional court this year at Berkeley, and they have several other courts that may be repaired in time for next year's tournament.

THANK YOU Matt Hills for putting together and running the draws! And, THANK YOU Allan Santos (Berkeley) for the successfully working through many details to get this tournament hosted at UC Berkeley, and for getting us a much needed 4th court.

Our next Tourney is confirmed for
Sat. Feb. 2, 2008 at UC Davis
with 6 racquetball courts !!!

-- John Bardos, Nov. 11, 2007

 

 

The points total for this tournament are:
      872 - CSU Sacramento
      844 - UC Berkeley
      625 - UC Santa Cruz
      533 - UC Davis
      308 - Stanford
      295 - San Jose State
        88 - Cal Poly SLO (partial team)

Full Tournament Results


Tournament Winners - CSU Sacramento

 

Thank you Ektelon for sponsoring the racquetballs for this tournament!
Ektelon is offering a very special price for racquetballs and eye guards to collegiate programs ... Get it while it's hot!


 

Extracurricular ... Racquetball ???

We offer no explanation ... Identities have been blurred to protect ... the innocent ???

 

WE'RE LOOKING FOR MORE PICTURES - PLEASE SEND PICTURES AND VIDEO TO jbardos(at)ucsc.edu and hills(at)tina.stanford.edu.

 

 
 
   
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