WFDF DDC Championships / AZ States

11/06/08 - 11/09/08 in Phoenix, Arizona

OPEN Division

WOMEN Division

MIXED Division

Gang, 
 As usual Harvey  and Suzan with a little help from their friends (Judy, Conrad,
  Bill and Rick) put on a fabulous show. 
 The fun kicked off with Mixed DDC on Thursday. The only thing cooler than mixed
  DDC is the fact that folks traveled to AZ early for another day of DDC! 
 That's amazing, particularly when one understands that there were 7 teams in 
 mixed!! SEVEN!!!! 
 Damon / Daniels, Brandt / Ugalde, Carreiro / Wright, Freedman / Verish, Cohn / 
 Sanchez, Roddick / Spekkens, and M. Horn / S. Horn. 
 Early pool play saw Brandt / Ugalde go undefeated at 6 - 0. Followed by 
 Freedman / Verish at 5 - 1, Damon / Daniels and Carreiro / Wright at 3- 3, 
 Cohn / Sanchez at 2 - 4, and Roddick / Spekkens-M. Horn / S. Horn both at 1- 5. 
 Round 2 saw Freedman / Verish storm to the top with 10 - 2 record. Nipping at 
 their heels was Brandt / Ugalde (8-3), Damon / Daniels (7-4),   with 
 Carreiro / Wright rounding out the top 4 at 6-6. 
 In the semis, it was Damon / Daniels defeating Brandt / Ugalde – 21-17 and 
 Freedman / Verish defeating Carreiro / Wright – 21-14. 
 The finals saw Freedman / Verish take the first game over Damon/Daniels 
 15 - 11. But in games 2 and 3 Conrad and Lori took the World DDC Mixed title 
 with scores of 15 -11 and 15 -10. 
 Final Mixed Standings: 
 1) Damon/Daniels 
 2) Freedman / Verish 
 3) Brandt / Ugalde - Carreiro / Wright 
 4) Cohn / Sanchez 
 5)  Roddick / Spekkens 
 6) M. Horn / S. Horn 
 Friday dawned beautifully and brought on the Women's and Open DDC competitions.
 After all the dust settled the Women's World DDC Champions were Mandy Carreiro 
 and Kristine Spekkens!! (Apparently, the dust covered up the score sheets from
  those matches!) 
 Here are the final standings for the Women: 
 1- Mandy Carreiro / Kristine Spekkens 
 2- Tita Ugalde / Beth Verish 
 3- Lori Daniels / Alex Polderman 
 Open Pool Play = Thirteen Teams!!!! 
 Exciting early play, with nearly perfect conditions made everyone glad they 
 came!! Though we had hoped for more teams we were fortunate to have a baker's 
 dozen (in this economy)! 
 LeBeau / Pellicane were their usual exciting selves, exiting the pool in style, 
 with very solid seed-busting play at the top spot. (THIS, after Tony's car had 
 a window busting moment, thanks to a cleat thief!) Brandt / Hesselberth wormed 
 their way to spot number 2, very impressive considering that Dave had just 
 gotten stitches out of his left hand only 10 days prior. Damon / Greensage were 
 their normal machine-like selves...always fun to watch and to play against. Team
  Kirkland proved that Cody's win (with Harv) at VA States was no fluke. Solid 
 play the whole pool long. 
 Big surprises were the seed busting and the re-emergence of Randy Aiu as a 
 force...as he  and the always ready Mark Horn played seed busters. They absolutely 
 tore apart Howard/Paschal in their first pool game. It was a sign of things to 
 come. (Welcome back Randy!!!) Other seed news? The Elsners also topped Team 
 Carolina....with their usual consistent and pesky play. Everyone agreed that Cade
  Loving (The Alaskan!) may soon be a force to be reckoned with. It was great 
 to see Shahid Islam back again as well. It was also nice to see Randy Lahm 
 again...once he FINALLY made it to the fields! 
 After the exciting round robin...here were the rankings: 
 1) LeBeau / Pellicane        11- 1 
 2) Brandt / Hesselberth      11- 1 
 3) Damon / Greensage      10 - 2 
 4) C. Kirkland / J. Kirkland   10 - 2 
 5) Aiu / M. Horn                       7- 5 
 6) Howard / Paschal              6 - 6 
 7) J. Cohn / Roddick              6 - 6 
 8) Freedman / Wright             6 - 6 
 9) C. Horn / Trevino                4- 8 
 10) Jim Elsner / John Elsner  4 - 8 
 11) Lahm / Islam                         2- 10 
 12) Korns / Loving                      1- 11 
 13) Andy Lemann / Bethany Sanchez   0 - 12 
 That left the semis and finals for Sunday morning! (Though Saturday saw pickup 
 play from noon until dark!) 
  LeBeau/Pellicane were the leaders going into the semis and thus got to pick 
 their opponents and choose Brandt/Hesselberth...which proved to be a VERY unwise 
 choice as Dave and Harv dispatched them in 2 games rather handily. 21 - 9 and 
 21 - 15. The normally superhuman LeBeau/Pellicane appeared a bit listless, 
 making quite a few unforced errors. Dave and Harvey played solid defense and 
 exhibited patient,crisp attacks. Kind of what they are known for!! 
 The wind was a factor and it affected both matches differently, since the courts 
 were laid out perpendicularly to each other...due to a field restriction.
 In the other semi Damon/Greensage paired off with the Kirklands. They squeaked 
 by in game one 21- 19, but won rather handily in the second game, with the 
 score being a not-as-close-as-it-looked 21- 15. The wind seemed to affect the 
 Kirkland clan a bit more...they left shots short and out on a repeated basis. 
 The finals were an anticlimactic 3 of 5 as Damon/Greensage had a fairly easy 
 time with Brandt/Hesselberth. Winning in a 3 games. (15- 6, 15- 8, 15 - 11) 
 Harv and Dave simply had an uncharacteristic showing in the final 3 games, with
  quite a few drops and a seeming inability to keep Conrad and John deep in the 
 court. That allowed for some very crisp attacks, the wind had picked up a bit 
 more at this point, and it seemed as if Conrad and John took excellent advantage
  of that increased breeze.
 That left Conrad Damon and John Greensage as the 2008 World DDC Champions!!! 
 Jump to the site and see the actual pool sheets: 
 http://web.mac.com/tmbanzai/iWeb/2008AZStates/Welcome.html 
 Get out your 2009 calendars now and mark November 12 - 15th, 2009 down now!! 
 Those are the dates for AZ 2009! Harv and Suzan promise to make next year even 
 better. (We'll Thai one on, on Saturday night!!) 
 The DDC Preservation Society- - - - - "Protecting America's Number One 
 Endangered Sport" 
 "Isn't it time your pod came out to play??" 
 "We need 2 teams from every pod in 2009!" 
 love and action, 
 chh