Griffith Claims Third Straight With LSTB Win
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LEE'S SUMMIT, MO -- Matt Griffith continued his dominance in the MCA Nine Wicket Series with his third straight Pro Division win yesterday in Lee's Summit, Missouri at the Lee's Summit T-Bone Tournament. Griffith took down Greg Clouse in the final with a decisive 32-13 win and extended his game-winning streak to 14 games. That is one shy of Paul Miller's record 15-game streak. Griffith has never lost an MCA Nine-Wicket Series game and now has a 14-0 record.
Gold Champ Bill BergIn the Gold Division, two old rivals met once again in the final despite the bigger field of eight players in the Gold Division playoff. Bill Berg took a 22-11 over Deborah Millican to claim his second-straight Gold Division title. There was a bit of controversy around the Gold Bracket as Nathan Oberg withdrew after the quarterfinals. That created a bye and an automatic advancement to the final for Berg.
Twelve-year-old newcomer Gabe Arrington went 4-0 to claim the Silver Division. He faced off against second-year Silver player Darin Watson in the final. Watson picked up his first career win earlier in the day with a 12-9 win over Ellie Kemp (also playing in her first MCA 9WS event) in his opening game. He then went on to win his block and advanced to the semi-final with a 12-10 win over Di Berg. He would have extended that streak, but the high-scoring Arrington took it away in the last moments. Both players had one-ball pegged out when Watson ended his turn set up for rover, while Arrington was set up for 13PW. Arrington scored the wicket and then quickly lined up and nailed the seven-yarder. That was all he needed to run 14PW, rover and the peg for an unlikely 32-30 pegout.
In the newly formed Bronze Division, Trevor Adams defeated Tim Weimholt in a two-player final after four games of six-ball play. They qualified by scoring the most points out of a six-player field with Weimholt scoring 50 and Adams putting up 42. The addition of this new tier of beginning players was a surprise development for the MCA this week and there was much discussion about how to best put together a format for completely new players. In fact, the expansion was such a surprise that the MCA did not have awards ready for the event and will be mailing out medals to Adams and Weimholt once they are produced.
The MCA Board expects to have more discussion on the Bronze Division play and the current view is that there is promise in developing new recruits through the six-ball game.