Wallingford traveled up route 252 looking to take down Waynesborough and give them a chance at their first regular season D1 Championship next week. Things looked mighty good for Wallingford as they took 2 sets out of three on both courts 1 and 2. But unfortunately for Wallingford, Waynesborough’s court 3 and 4 came ready for battle. On Court 4, the Undefeated and still TastyKake Champion, Paul Ridder and partner Hank Oberly took all three sets off of Jay Peichel and Tom Mashek. On Court 3, Waynesborough has a 13 week undefeated streak and tonight would continue as Jim Ryan and Keith Studnick after wining the first set convincingly, was down three set points in the second to Ken Crowther and Ray Johnston before pulling out set two and set three to defeat Wallingford 8 sets to 4 and giving Waynesborough the D1 regular season championship 3 out of the last 4 years. Captain Safford was quite happy with his team’s accomplishments this year during the regular season as the focus can now shift to the play-offs in which they are guaranteed home court for the quarter-finals. “I did not even have to bring in my 9th man Vlatko this week to take down this very dangerous and hot Wallingford team. Our team has proved to be very versatile as this was only the second week we fielded our complete team.” With their point earned tonight, Wallingford secured the second seed for the play-offs.
Aronimink took down Martins-1 three courts to one as Andrew Sorrentino and Peter Pijawaka found the magic formula to defeat Scott Falatek and Gregg Frigerio giving them their only second loss of the season. On Court 2, Drew Friel and Brendan Kirk snapped back from last week’s loss to defeat Paul Nofer and Fazal Syed in straight sets. On Court 3, Greg Donches and Dan Wheeler kept their team from a sweep by taking all three sets off of Parker Sherry and JJ. Rick Craft and Peter Haabestad dropped the first set and then won two grueling sets to take court 4 and clinching Aronimink as the third seed for the play-offs.
P-Country laid a hurting and swept Greenville with the Nolan’s wining court 1 in a third set tie breaker over Todd Marvin and Ben Zink. Even Norm and Mark Carson came back from the lose of a first set to win their match also in a third set tie breaker over the new Greenville #4 team of Simon Peppiatt and Eric Holloway, who was recently called up and added to the 40 man roster.
Standings for the Top 6 (1 week to go)
WCC 28pts (ARN next week) * Clinched 1st seed
Wal 24 pts (PCC next week) ** Clinched 2nd Seed
Arn 21 pts (WCC next week) *** Clinched 3rd Seed
PCC 19 pts (Wal next week)
MD1 17 pts (Gre next week)
Gre 17 pts (MD next week)
And in the bottom six
Somehow, Merion managed to default Court 4 to Martins-2 but still wins the match by sweeping all three courts played. Martins did not win a single set but received some good news at the end of the evening that even though they have one only 1 match against the bottom six competition, they will be back next year as they have clinched 10th place. Per Captain Dan, “Although this is not MD2’s finest moment in the league, we did enough scrambling to keep us alive one more year paddling with the big boys.” With this win for Merion, they locked up a position in an 8 team play-off which is quite an accomplishment from where this team was a month ago.
Unfortunately for Kennett and Vic Mead, week 15 will indicate the week of no return to D1 for next season for both of them. These teams have jumped in and out of D1 more than any teams that anyone can remember. Does that make them an awesome D2 team or a really weak D1 team? All depends upon your perspective. These guys just like getting out there and playing some good matches on a weekly basis and never lodge a complaint about their standing or the structure of the league (a lot to be said about that).
All odds are on this year’s Cinderalla team Overbrook to take the 8th spot for the play-offs next week. They only need to win 2 courts and the spot is theirs and their destiny with WCC in the first round of the play-offs. This team has won 5 out of their last 6 matches and not at team to be taken lightly by any potential play-off opponents. Steve Hall stated, “It just shows that our win over Wallingford was not a fluke! We match up tough against anyone in this league.”
Standings for the Bottom 6 (1 week to go) (Bottom 2 move to D1)
Mer 18pts (next week Ken) * clinched a play-off birth
Ovb 17pts (next week VM)
PCK 15pts (next week MD2)
MD2 13pts (next week PCK)
VM 9pts (next week OVB) **** Will be relegated to D2 Next Season
Ken 9pts (next week Mer) **** Will be relegated to D2 Next Season
In D2 News
Huntingdon Valley officially punched their ticket to move up to D1 again as they are in the process of completing an undefeated season in D2. According to Rodney Stewart, “these boys were hungrier this year and went through this D2 division like a hot knife through butta. We full expect to competing for a Top 6 spot next year in D1 and look forward to some good ball.” The second spot is still wide open in D2 as Picket Post has a 1 point advantage going into the last week and also appears to hold the tie-breaker advantage
