Spent the last few days playing handball down in Albuquerque at the 19th annual Dog Bowl tournament. I've only been playing for a little less than 11 months, so I entered the tournament in the "C" class, single and doubles (playing with Dick Beaudoin). There weren't a huge number of players in C, so the brackets were pretty sparse. My first singles game was against Bob Torch, and he beat me pretty handily. I was playing with a hurt elbow and didn't feel like I should have lost, but that's how it goes and I went into the loser's bracket. Today I played the consolation finals for C-singles and beat my opponent easily, 21-4, 21-11, to take third place in C singles. My prize was a new can of handball balls. Dick's first C singles opponent was the guy I beat to take third. His second opponent (in the finals) was Torch, who he had no problem beating. So the C singles top three were Dick, Torch, and me.

In C doubles, there were even fewer entries. Dick and I first played some very old guys (82 and 71) and beat them 21-4, 21-9. That put us into the finals, where we played a couple of great three-wall players from El Paso. We won the first game 21-5 and I thought we had it made, but on the second game I couldn't seem to return the Z serve and we lost 6-21. The tie breaker wasn't looking better when we started out letting them get up 0-8. But then Dick found a weakness in their serve return and I started hitting high arcing shots that they were no good at returning and we came back to win, 11-9.

So Dick and I were the C doubles champions, and our prize was a pair of really nice ceramic wine glasses. It was a fun tournament. I think I played below my level , probably because of tournament jitters, but I learned a lot by watching the A and open devision guys play. Next year I anticipate I'll probably be able to take C singles, and that'll bump me up into the B division.

An article from the Albuquerque Tribune on the tournament, written by Phil Parker, son and doubles partner of my work colleague, Bob Parker.