08/13/2024
While we had a smaller field this year, it didn’t hinder the competition this past weekend, so give it up for all our participants who took home some hardware this year!
Following pool play, we found the individual winners of the day with a few friendly skills competitions. For the Men’s Hardest Shot Contest Matt Roth (Ice Storm), Brian Williams (Wasted Talent), and Travis Helm (OOPS! All Tendies!) advanced to the finals of our largest competition. In the second round, Brian and Travis tied at 69mph edging out Matt who shot 67 mph during the single-shot sequence. Since there could only be one victor, our remaining shooters took an additional swing to break the tie, with Travis able to put up 67mph and beat Brian at 66mph. On the Ladies’ side, Amanda Mayappo (Executioners) led going into the final with 58mph. She was followed by Steph Taylor (Roadrunners - 55 mph) and Kyara Quan (Executioners - 53 mph). With their deciding swings, Amanda couldn’t recreate her first-round speed with a 52mph final shot and Kyara could not hit the target, leaving the door open for Steph’s 54mph strike to take the title. If any of these players shoot in front of you, you may want to retreat.
The sharpshooter competitions had a new scoring system in 2024 which paid dividends for players willing to aim high! Charlie Mitchell (Roadrunners) took full advantage of the upper targets to win the men’s division for the second year in a row. On the women’s side, Emily Roth (Ice Storm) decisively took it home for the ladies this year as the only competitor to connect with multiple targets. (It’s harder than it looks, folks.) Thank you to all who participated in our skills competitions and congrats to this year’s winners!
For the rest of the evening, teams battled it out to settle our upper and lower playoff brackets. The A-Bracket was a 4-team draw this year with the top seeds from each pool eventually meeting in the final. Despite their small bench, Columbus Kutters continued their dominance in the semifinal putting up 4 goals on Ice Storm. Meanwhile, Clear Skies needed a last-second goal and two overtimes to knock off the defending champions, Mind Probers. The defensive specialist turned goal scorer, Drew Armstrong, broke the tie advancing Clear Skies to the final. Columbus Kutters took the lead in the first half of the final courtesy of a Ben Eckert rocket. Despite playing a tight defensive game, Clear Skies found their way into a familiar situation by managing to tie the game and force overtime. Once again, a single overtime was not enough. Both teams carried out a calculated game plan during the second overtime of 3v3 with no goalies. After countless near misses from both squads, a Kyle Kaminski and Matt Hill combination goal eventually allowed Clear Skies to celebrate a host team championship for the first time in the A-bracket.
In the B-Bracket, a similar story played out with the top seeds from each half finding their way to a title shot. Despite last-minute personnel replacements, Ice Mambas found success in the playoffs eking out 1-0 wins in both the quarterfinals and semifinals. Roadrunners struggled to find the net during pool play, but had no problem locating it during the playoffs scoring five goals in each game. Ice Mambas never gave up, but the Roadrunners offense was simply too hot to contain as they continued their 5-goal game pace and decisively claimed the B-bracket championship.
Congratulations again to all our winners! But just as importantly, THANK YOU to all the players, coaches, and fans who made the trip to spend another amazing weekend in Oxford with us. It’s a privilege to be able to host this tournament year after year and it would not be possible without all of you! We hope we get to see you back in Goggin next August, but ideally, we’ll run into you in a lot of other places before then too.
Your loyal tournament directors,
Brian and Sabrina
