Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Coolavin Park
NoC Sports Desk
Both Kyle Hord and Chris Simpson scored three goals apiece in a defensive showdown at picturesque Coolavin Park on the last day of September bike polo action. The weather was crisp, the bike gear flashy, and the play decidedly defensive. As player Brad Flowers noted of the evening's matches, “The defense is getting so good now that it's hard to dribble around and score.”
The third game of the night featured a plethora of beards. On Team One (T1), Chris Simpson (hippy beard), Brian Ronk (Jesus beard), and Jarid (with an “I,”) (red beard) sported a formidable and diverse amount of facial hair. Opposing them, Kyle Hord (scrappy beard), Texas Phenom Rich Lopez (scruffy beard), and Megan Stanton (lacking beard, but didn't shave all month—or year, for that matter) looked less imposing, but were no less prepared when bystanders in the player's pit announced the 7:19 joust time with a spirited “3-2-1 Bike Polo.”
Perhaps because her smooth face provided less wind drag than the rest of the bearded players (an aerodynamic observation reportedly first made by Mad Dog Buckingham as faster bikes passed him by), Stanton controlled the joust, though to no scoring advantage. The opening minutes featured back and forth action and solid mid-court defensive work on both sides. Each team attempted passes at the goal, only to be stoned on their approach by stealthy steals and well-timed tie-ups. The closest thing to a score,for both teams, came at the 7:22 mark when a hard shot by T1's Ronk careened off the spokes of Texas Phenom Rich Lopez at the T2 goal and catapulted to midcourt. From there, a waiting Hord took the puck and balljointed it in the other direction to within eight feet of the T1 goal before Jarid (with an “I”) stepped in to foil any goal-producing shot.
Finally, at the 7:23 P.M. mark, a Lopez blooper at midcourt allowed Simpson to break the scoreless tie by hitting his first of two consecutive goals. Lopez had tried to leave a drop pass for the circling Stanton, but the Texan inexplicably left the pass instead for a waiting Simpson at the near-side midcourt wall. Simpson grabbed the gift and sped around and dribbled the ball to within 8 feet for an easy tap-in 1-0 T1 lead. He would add to the lead less than 30 seconds later on a backhand shot and score that trickled in for a 2-0 T1 lead.
The 2-0 lead would not stand, however, thanks to some crafty work by T2's Kyle Hord, who went on a two minute scoring binge of his own. His first goal, a hard shot over the middle that sailed past the outstretched mallet of Jarid (with an “I”), brought T2 to within one score at the 7:25 P.M. mark. A little over a minute later, Hord brought his team back to even with an impressive slap shot at halfcourt that sped past a bevy of menacing, bearded, defensemen who were charging in.
Momentum continued to see-saw and gain in intensity as the two teams traded goals. The first, a Jarid (with an “I”) rebound off the back wall that he slapped in with furious force from 3 feet out, pushed T1 out to a 3-2 lead at the 7:28 mark. The ever-steady Hord evened the score, though, at the 7:31 mark with an uncharacteristic burst of speed down the far side of the court for an uncontested shot and score.
With the score now tied and audience excitement ratcheting to a near violent frenzy, defensive guru and human ball crusher Tiff Morrow, who had just watched from the pit as her dog Elliot relieved himself on Court 2, tempered the audience and players by making a simple observation and asking an even simpler question (before then going to clean up Elliot's gift to Court 2): “We have free beer at Al's. What's the score?”
The question got immediate response. Crowd noise dissipated. Collectively, the players decided to hold a sudden death joust to decide which team could declare themselves Game 3 Winners (of a random September night of Bike Polo). Less than a minute later, Simpson dutifully serviced Morrow's thirsty needs by sending a half-court prayer through the cones for a hardfought 4-3 T1 victory.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Tripple Lexxx falls in OT to Comosexuals
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Coolavin Park
[Author's Note: This is a more correct version than appeared in print. Thanks to Brian Turner for the corrections.]
After it was all said and done at Saturday's inaugural Bluegrass Games Bike Polo tournament—after five hours of tournament play had whittled seventeen teams down to two, after an intensely fought 1-1 draw in regulation of the championship game, and after Charlie Hill slipped a ten-foot scoot-shot past Tiff Morrow for a 2-1 victory over local mates Tripple Lexxx in the seventh minute of overtime—it was three Comosexual boys from Columbia, Missouri who would walk away with the title “Champions of the Bluegrass (Games Bike Polo tournament).”
Tournament play started at 12:56 PM with Bluegrass Games Commissioner of Bike Polo Brian Turner announcing the tournament brackets and court rules for the double elimination tournament. Ten minutes later, hometown boys Jesus, the Spic, and the Little Kid (Brian Ronk, Texas phenom Rich Lopez, and Kevin Kliment, respectively) opened tournament play with a 4-1 victory over Atlanta team Down Low. While there were occasional sprinkles—notably whenever Lexington team Pray for Rain actually played—the weather held up and made for glorious bike polo and grilling conditions. In all, five Lexington teams entered the tournament, with the No See Ums (Turner, Drew Combs, and Kyle Hord) placing fifth to go with the second place finish of Tripple Lexxx.
The championship showdown will certainly go down as one of the more thrilling finishes in Bluegrass Games Bike Polo tournament history. The game had it all: two dominant teams, precision passes, smart shots, dazzling defensive displays, bike crashes, scorekeepers, a vocal crowd cheering on the hometown underdogs, fast-paced action, and above all else, a championship drama that pick-up games just can't simulate.
Hometown favorites Tripple Lexxx, featuring Brad Flowers, Tiff Morrow, and Chris Simpson, emerged from the loser's bracket to face the unbeaten Comosexuals, and at 5:35 PM, the championship game began with a hard offensive by the Comosexuals that lasted all of two minutes before Flowers pushed a half-court runout to within four feet of the Comosexual goal. With a flick of the mallet, Flowers fended off a trailing Comosexual, Nicholas Jacob, by dribbling the ball through Jacob's wheels and tapping in for an early 1-0 Tripple Lexxx lead.
The crowd went bonkers—throwing chairs, guzzling Ale-8s, and pounding the court walls with mallets like a pack of coked-out wildebeests. They knew that a one-goal lead might be a virtual lock with Morrow, a certified ball crusher, guarding the goal.
But championships have a way of writing their own scripts. Much of the rest of the game was marked by unwanted Comosexual advances on Flowers,Morrow, and Simpson. Five minutes in at the 5:40 PM mark, Comosexual Pete Abram snuck one through a scrum in front of the goal to tie the game up at 1-1. From here, the game settled into a strategic match of bike-chess, with both teams looking, unsuccessfully, for the other team to flinch. By the time regulation play ended in a tie, both teams seemed physically and mentally drained. It was only the excited roar of the onlookers that kept the players going when play resumed at 5:47 PM after a water break.
The game appeared over at the 5:49 mark when Simpson rebounded his own miss along the fence, slipped back underneath to the goal, and tapped the ball over for an apparent 2-1 Tripple Lexxx victory. Bluegrass Games Bike Polo Commissioner Brian Turner, however, was right on top of things with a ruling that negated the shot because Simpson did not allow a second player to touch his ball after his first missed shot. Ultimately, however, it was a run-out by Comosexual Hill off a rare Tripple Lexxx offensive that ended the game. Hill reached around to steal a pass over the middle intended for Flowers. On the sprint the other way, Comosexuals Abram and Hill converged with Flowers, which resulted in a foot-down for Abram.
Abram's foot-down gave Hill the daylight he needed to spring to center court and slip a ten foot shot quickly past Morrow's pedals for the win at the 5:53 PM mark. Although vaguely disappointed with the outcome, the crowd appreciated the spectacular play by both teams and roared with delight for all six players.
Coolavin Park
[Author's Note: This is a more correct version than appeared in print. Thanks to Brian Turner for the corrections.]
After it was all said and done at Saturday's inaugural Bluegrass Games Bike Polo tournament—after five hours of tournament play had whittled seventeen teams down to two, after an intensely fought 1-1 draw in regulation of the championship game, and after Charlie Hill slipped a ten-foot scoot-shot past Tiff Morrow for a 2-1 victory over local mates Tripple Lexxx in the seventh minute of overtime—it was three Comosexual boys from Columbia, Missouri who would walk away with the title “Champions of the Bluegrass (Games Bike Polo tournament).”
Tournament play started at 12:56 PM with Bluegrass Games Commissioner of Bike Polo Brian Turner announcing the tournament brackets and court rules for the double elimination tournament. Ten minutes later, hometown boys Jesus, the Spic, and the Little Kid (Brian Ronk, Texas phenom Rich Lopez, and Kevin Kliment, respectively) opened tournament play with a 4-1 victory over Atlanta team Down Low. While there were occasional sprinkles—notably whenever Lexington team Pray for Rain actually played—the weather held up and made for glorious bike polo and grilling conditions. In all, five Lexington teams entered the tournament, with the No See Ums (Turner, Drew Combs, and Kyle Hord) placing fifth to go with the second place finish of Tripple Lexxx.
The championship showdown will certainly go down as one of the more thrilling finishes in Bluegrass Games Bike Polo tournament history. The game had it all: two dominant teams, precision passes, smart shots, dazzling defensive displays, bike crashes, scorekeepers, a vocal crowd cheering on the hometown underdogs, fast-paced action, and above all else, a championship drama that pick-up games just can't simulate.
Hometown favorites Tripple Lexxx, featuring Brad Flowers, Tiff Morrow, and Chris Simpson, emerged from the loser's bracket to face the unbeaten Comosexuals, and at 5:35 PM, the championship game began with a hard offensive by the Comosexuals that lasted all of two minutes before Flowers pushed a half-court runout to within four feet of the Comosexual goal. With a flick of the mallet, Flowers fended off a trailing Comosexual, Nicholas Jacob, by dribbling the ball through Jacob's wheels and tapping in for an early 1-0 Tripple Lexxx lead.
The crowd went bonkers—throwing chairs, guzzling Ale-8s, and pounding the court walls with mallets like a pack of coked-out wildebeests. They knew that a one-goal lead might be a virtual lock with Morrow, a certified ball crusher, guarding the goal.
But championships have a way of writing their own scripts. Much of the rest of the game was marked by unwanted Comosexual advances on Flowers,Morrow, and Simpson. Five minutes in at the 5:40 PM mark, Comosexual Pete Abram snuck one through a scrum in front of the goal to tie the game up at 1-1. From here, the game settled into a strategic match of bike-chess, with both teams looking, unsuccessfully, for the other team to flinch. By the time regulation play ended in a tie, both teams seemed physically and mentally drained. It was only the excited roar of the onlookers that kept the players going when play resumed at 5:47 PM after a water break.
The game appeared over at the 5:49 mark when Simpson rebounded his own miss along the fence, slipped back underneath to the goal, and tapped the ball over for an apparent 2-1 Tripple Lexxx victory. Bluegrass Games Bike Polo Commissioner Brian Turner, however, was right on top of things with a ruling that negated the shot because Simpson did not allow a second player to touch his ball after his first missed shot. Ultimately, however, it was a run-out by Comosexual Hill off a rare Tripple Lexxx offensive that ended the game. Hill reached around to steal a pass over the middle intended for Flowers. On the sprint the other way, Comosexuals Abram and Hill converged with Flowers, which resulted in a foot-down for Abram.
Abram's foot-down gave Hill the daylight he needed to spring to center court and slip a ten foot shot quickly past Morrow's pedals for the win at the 5:53 PM mark. Although vaguely disappointed with the outcome, the crowd appreciated the spectacular play by both teams and roared with delight for all six players.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)