Wallingford, playing for their first division crown held off the pesky Martins-1 team in a tiebreaker of sets (7-5). Not even the Mike duo losing to Falatek and Donches could slow this club down. Does Captain Derek’s off season moves put him up their with the elite Captains of seasons past? Only time will tell but this team has both youth and upcoming players that should put them near the top for years to come. Their division crown gives them the first seed in the playoffs against the second hottest team in D1 P-Cricket. Martins 1 earns the sixth seed and will play Aronimink in their first round match next week.
Speaking of P-Cricket, they have pulled off four in a row and welcomed back Rexy playing in his first match of the season in their defeat of H-Valley in the battle for the last spot in the tournament. By all standards, H-Valley surpassed most of everyone’s expectations for the season, as not only did they not finish in the bottom 2, they finished only 1 point away from 8th place. Speaking with Captain Bruce, “I would get a good night sleep if I was on the Wallingford squad this Wednesday night, as my squad is ready for action. We want to be the first team in D1 history to win the tournament with the 8th seed.”
Waynesborough needed some help from Martins-1 to take back their #1 seed, which was not in the cards this week. That did not stop them from sweeping 3 courts from Aronimink with the fourth court declared to be a double-default due to some sort of Holiday falling on the night of the matches. The result of the match was that Way earned the 2nd seed and Aronimink got the 3rd seed. Waynesborough will face off against Merion, while Aronimink will have Martins-1. Star player Drew Friel who has admitted for seasons that while he loves his Waynesborough buds, he hates losing to them.
“We fully anticipate returning the sweep favor in the semi’s, we felt no sense in showing our cards during the regular season,” Captain Tom was quoted after the match, “looking back on our season, we certainly had some unanticipated set backs this season. I had to talk a lot of our players off the roof of the Waynesborough hut after the early loss to Picket Post. While we finished in 2nd place, I am not sure how that can happen when we won 10 more courts this season to Wallingford. Someone has to check how the most dominant team is not declared the winner.”
Overbrook locked down the 4th seed in the play-offs with their win over Martins-2. A change in their line-up seemed to be the key as they Eger and Burt traded places, which resulted in 2 wins for them. Will they keep this line-up in the playoffs is anyone’s guess. These two teams will play each other again next week in the first round of the play-offs. Captain Dan stated that our pre-season goal was to be in the top 6 after week 11 and when we pulled that off, the squad seemed to suffer a let down. We will be ready for Overbrook next week.”
Merion secured the 7th spot after Greenville announced they were going to default all four courts due to a Holiday that their guys were celebrating. Greenville made it out of the bottom 2 by a total of ½ a point and will certainly have to regroup for next season if they want to make the Top 6. Merion came out of the starting gate with 4 straight wins, played consistent enough to earn the 8th spot and are looking forward to playing at Waynesborough next week.
In a match that was all about pride, P-Country took 3 out of 4 courts over Picket Post in what will be their last match in D1 for a while. Captain Hocker stated “I do not envy any of the D2 teams next season, there will be no mercy coming from our squad as we have made a blood pact to make it back to D1 in the 2014/15 season.” There are unconfirmed rumors that Hocker has a meeting scheduled by the P-Country GM in a few weeks to discuss the season. There is also another rumor that Captain Derek “Steinbrenner” has reached out to Pat Jr. regarding next season.
D1 will be welcoming back 2011/12 bottom 2 finishers Vic Mead and Kennett for next season as they completed this season in first and second place in D2. Their question will be can they hang with the big guns for more than 1 season?
The play-offs for D1 – D3 are all set and posted on the mapta.tenniscores.com website.
Here are the 2/21 D1 match ups
P-Cricket is at Wallingford
Merion is at Waynesborough
Martins-1 is at Aronimink
Martins-2 is at Overbrook
FREE BEER – FREE BEER – FREE BEER – FREE BEER – FREE BEER – FREE BEER
MAPTA will be hosting the Men’s D1 finals at Waynesborough on February 28 at approx. 8:30PM and you guessed it, there will be Free Beer. Hope to see everyone there for the event. Last years final was thrilling and we had a great turnout, this year we are expecting to double the turnout…
