And the winner is ... Who?

This UC Davis tourney was a big success with a few new and exciting players from new schools, and a dramatic Jose Diaz "Challenge the Junior" exhibition. Eli Smukler made the trip from UCLA to play in his first WCRC tourney and is a great contribution to the WCRC in Southern California. Ismael Aldana and Sue Sublaban are new from San Joaquin Delta College ... Ismael won the Men's I and Sue captured the attention of many at the tournament by making it to the Men's II finals, and finishing a strong second place! Congratulations to Stephen Hibbs (Stanf) for winning Men's III !

The UC Santa Cruz team pulled off a surprise victory and won the UC Davis tourney! UC Santa Cruz finished in 5th place overall at the end of last year's season, finished no higher than 4th place in any tournament last year, but started this season strong with a 3rd place finish at Berkeley. This 1st place victory was the result of the combination of Danielle Evans winning the Women's drawn, Larry Pack winning Men's II, and a solid overall performance by the rest of the team.     Go Slugs!

THANK YOU Matt Hills (Stanford) for putting together the draws and helping to run the tournament.

THANK YOU Michael Lordon (UC Davis) for coordinating the hosting of this tournament with UC Davis. We could not secure having food inside the ARC - we were supposed to use the outdoor tables - but the positive attitude and persistence of Michael secured a nice conference room for players to relax in and enjoy all the food.

Jose Diaz and Challenge the Junior

Fourteen year old Jose Diaz was our very special guest, and he recently teamed up with IRT Pro Javier Moreno to win the 2007 St. Jude Pro-Am Charity Doubles Tournament. He accepted all challengers to beat him in a game to 7 points, but to make things more interesting, prizes were
given to anyone who could score 1 point! He lost only one game to 7, but the real drama was watching how hard it was for people to score that 1 point - nearly every shot was critical and kept everyone glued to the action. Some people were able to score at least 1 point, but not everyone!

Thank you Ektelon for bringing us Jose Diaz!

Sue Sublaban
Sue was a wonderful personality around the tournament, and created plenty of drama as she competed extremely well in Men's II by making it all the way to the finals! While she can hit the ball reasonably hard, it was her well rounded game, with no significant weaknesses, and well placed shots that carried her past opponents.

Extracurricular ... Racquetball ???
Now, in my continued attempt to fully comprehend this extracurricular racquetball (see my initial discovery), I ventured into the "court" to accept, well, whatever was going to come my way.

My initial assessment: It's like cattle avoiding the prod!
I made a rookie mistake, but was let off the hook by some Sac State folks as the rules were clarified ... So, we're square on the whole trophy thing.

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

-- John Bardos, Feb. 3, 2008