Surprising results

I won the consolation side at racquetball provincials this past weekend. I'm surprised by how well I played, actually. I haven't been playing so much the last few months to a year, so my form has been off some. Thus, I wasn't that hopeful about how it would go in provincials.

I played Kurt first, who beat me out in Brandon a couple of months back. He got leads in both game one and two. I managed to come back in both to level the scores at 11 and 12, respectively, but couldn't finish either game, so lost two straight.

In my first consolation side match, I played Sean, who's an up and coming young whipper snapper. I wasn't very hopeful about how it was going to go, especially as it was a 9 AM Saturday start time. Early in game one it was going as expected, as he jumped out to a lead. But I managed to come back, got in a bit of a groove, and won the first game.

The second game I just came out on fire. I was drive serving well, and got some easy points with drive serves to the right side. I got up 11-1, and won going away.

In Sunday's consolation final, I played Gus, who I used to play regularly - about once a week - when Courts Sports was still open (it closed last year), but I haven't played him recently. When we played regularly, our games were close, so I wasn't sure what was going to happen.

But again to my surprise, I started out well, and won the first game going away. In game two, he got a lead at 8-3. I felt a bit tired, and my glove was a bit damp, so I took a timeout, changed gloves, and came back to win it, 15-8.

There was a bit of controversy late in game two as some of Gus's serves were called short. That might not have been a big deal, but as it was Open division we were playing one serve, so a short serve was a loss of serve. I thought one call was certainly right, although wasn't sure of the second. I offered to replay the second one, but Gus - though annoyed by the call - refused.

All in all, it gives me some confidence and hope going in to nationals later this month in Regina. My fellow A division competitors - including Kurt and Sean - better watch out!