I played in the Marv Jensen Spring Smash racquetball tournament. I played Singles and Doubles with Brian Gill. I didn't do too well in singles. Lost in first round of Open to Brandon Gould. Lost in the Elite division to Jeff Rollins. Lost to Pete Wrigley to take 4th place. Doubles was better. Brian and I scrapped past Mike V. and Garret in the first round. Played and interesting game against Jack and Eric and lost in the finals to the Montanezez.

I haven't played on the courts at the Orem Fitness Center since the November 2008 Mullet Hoover so I signed up for the Orem Open. The draw was pretty small, only eight entrants. Lucky me - I got to play Adam Andersen in the first round. My worst loss ever in a tournament was two years ago at the Orem Open to Adam. If I remember right he beat me then 15-2, 15-0. The Orem courts are very different than the courts I play on at Marv Jensen. They have cement walls and they are extremely fast. To make a long story short Adam won 15-3, 15-5. That is totally awesome - apparently I played four times better this time because I scored four times as many points. j/k. Let's just say that wasn't one of my better showings. I then dropped to the elte division and played Scott Burr. He has improved quite a bit since last year. I wasn't playing well against him either. I gave up a 14-11 lead and lost the first game. In the second game I started serving lobs and junk to his backhand and Scott started skipping. Momentum changed and he gave up the second game 15-3. I finally got a little bit going and pulled out the win in the tie-breaker 11-6. I played Devin in the elite finals. I beat him 15-13. Then he beat me 15-11. And then he stepped it up a notch and beat me 11-3. Even though I lost I felt like a played a lot better against Devin than I had in the whole tournament up to that point.

I signed up for this tournament thinking it would be a great way to put some additional miles on my minivan so I could get all the I/M monitors into ready status to be tested. It ended up being a pretty good turnout with 14 open players. We were divided into 3 groups for round robins and played 2 games to 11. I played Mike Blakesley first and won both games. Then I played Rick Corbridge. I felt like I was playing pretty good but only managed 6 points in the first game. The second game I made the mistake of hitting every shot (whether that's where I was aiming or not) to his backhand only to see a perfect pinch, splat, or kill every time. He took advantage of the situation and thoroughly beat me. Next I played Jeff Skanche. I jumped out to an early lead 8-3. Then the downward spiral began. I couldn't seem to hit a shot after that. He beat me 11-8, 11-4 (or something pathetic like that). The loss to Jeff put me out of contention to continue to the playoff rounds. So with one meaningless match left to play in the round robin I played Mike VanValkenburg. We've played each other a lot in matches over the years. Probably not as much as I've played his son Devin, but enough times that we both know what to expect. It seems like I always win the first game with Mike. Then he gets into my head, attacks my weaknesses and sometimes I'm lucky and I can hang on for a win and sometimes (like this time) he beats me. I did have my chance to win at 10-7 but ended up losing 10-11. Overall it was a fun tournament. I would have liked to have done better but, you can't win them all.

I wasn't looking for a racket deal. I was looking for shoes - the Wilson EB-7 shoes to be exact. I have owned 4 pairs and I really like them. I noticed they are not part of the new line of shoes for this year so I was checking around to see who still sells them when I stumbled onto racquetworld.com. Racquetworld was having a Black Friday sale. Buy one K-lite for $90 get one for $10. They also had a buy one EB-9 for $50 get one for $10. Don't mind if I do.

I was in the right place at the right time to pick up these sticks.



The Head Prestige Microgel Mid retails for $199
The Head Prestige Flexpoint Midplus retails for $179
and the Wilson K-Sting 105 retails for $139

My purchase price - $90 for all three!

The Head Prestige Microgel and the Wilson K-Sting are brand new. The Head Prestige Flexpoint is like new - no scratches.

The first tournament of the season is always a tough one. Who wants to be indoors playing racquetball when the weather outside is so nice? Well I made a big mistake. I restrung 2 of my racquets about a week before the tournament and I increased the string tension 2 lbs in one and 4 lbs in the other. I thought I might just try some different tensions to see if it helped out my game at all. Let's just say it isn't a good idea to try things out just before a tournament. I signed up for the Open division and the Age division. Not many people signed up to play age so the divisions were combined from under 24 to 50. In my Open match I played Jeff Rollins. I lost in a tie-breaker. In my Age division match I played John Haynes. I won in a tie-breaker. Then I played Rico Dubach. I lost in a tie-breaker. Since I lost in the first round of the Open division I was bumped in to the Elite division. My first match there was against Eric Fry. I lost in a tie-breaker. (I had an 8-1 lead in the tie-breaker and choked). I have choked worse - remember State Singles last year against Kristen Bellows? My final match was in the Age division for 3rd place. I played Devin VanValkenburg. Devin and I have played several times over the years. I and I have only lost to him once (in last year's Cottonwood Tournament). We almost always go tie-breaker. Well sure enough we went tie-breaker and I somehow managed to not choke. So 5 tie-breakers in 5 matches. I won 2 and lost 3.

I woke up Saturday morning after my Kings Peak hike and found that I actually felt pretty good - I wasn't all stiff and sore yet. So I decided to play in the Utah Outdoor Racquetball tournament. I played in the tournament last year and found outdoor racquetball to be a similar yet extremely different sport than indoor racquetball. The major differences between indoor and outdoor racquetball is that in outdoor racquetball there is no back wall and there is no ceiling. So the sport becomes more like tennis where if the ball is past you your only option is to try and chase it down before the second bounce. The tournament was held at Island Park in Centerville (I think that is the only place they have outdoor courts in Utah). There were 12 participants in the Open division. We were divided into two groups to play round robins. The top 2 from each group would move on to the Semis.
I started off playing Rick Corbridge. He's an excellent open player but he hadn't played outdoor racquetball before so he was still trying to figure out the game. The score went back and forth and at one point I had him 14-11 and he managed to rally past me for the win 14-15. Next I played John Haynes. John never really got going and I beat him 15-2. Brad Brumbaugh beat Rick Corbridge. Which meant if I wanted to make the semis I would have to beat Brad who is also an excellent open player. I told Brad that I needed to beat him to make the semis and he laughed. Then we played. I ended up beating him 15-8 which meant I would still have a chance at making the semis. Next I played Kevin Day. Kevin is an excellent open player. However he couldn't seem to get much going against me either and I beat him 15-5. One player left to beat to make the semis - Mike VanValkenburg. Mike has a great game that gives me trouble. He started off working me all over, but I managed to figure out how to beat him and finished 15-6. With 4 wins 1 loss and 14 points in the game I lost. I ended up being the 1 seed from our round robin group so I had to play the 2 seed from the other group who was non other than Ron Scoville. Ron and I played at BYU together 10 years ago. Ron always managed to beat me when it counted back then. And the two times we've met in the past year he has beat me. The game format for the semis was full match, 2 games to 15, tie-breaker to 11 if necessary. I beat him in two games straight sending me to the finals. It was very hot outside in the 90s, especially compared to the 40-70 degree temperatures I was hiking in the day before. Also I was very tired. In the finals I played Andrew Gale. I've played Andrew 3 times in indoor racquetball and I have never beat him. Usually the games aren't even close. Today was different. This was outdoor racquetball. We rallied back and forth and I managed to win the first game. The second game I started playing extremely well and jumped out to a 10 point lead. But slowly Andrew chipped away at the lead eventually passing me and winning the second game 15-13. So our match continued in a tiebreaker game to 11. Back and forth we went. With the score at 8-6 I thought to myself, 'this is tough - but not as tough as yesterday' and then I managed to pull off 3 incredible serves and I won the outdoor tournament!!! For winning the tournament I received a $75 cash prize (I am now officially a "Pro" because I was paid to play). I still can't believe I won the tournament - especially considering I hiked over 28 miles the day before.