First, let me start off by saying that I've only played in the VNEA tournament once before and that was only because I was invited to play on a strong masters team as a last minute addition (We did great and took fouth and I played my best pool ever). I usually play in the BCA tournament.
This year my team had some scheduling issues so we decided to play in the masters team event. I got there Tuesday, the night before the tournament started. Based on what everyone was saying about the BCA tournament turnout I was pretty excited but was dissapointed with the turnout when I finally got to the Riv. It seemed emtpy to me and there was no action to speak of.
Anyway, the masters division had 13 teams. We were broken up into two flights. We started with a round robin format with the first place team from each flight getting seeded in a 4 team double elimination "money" bracket. The 2nd and 3rd place teams from each flight had to play in a play off to get to the double elimination bracket. I liked the format and it resulted in a lot of pool. The matches were scheduled well, not too much time between matches but we weren't rushed in any way.
We played a team from Minnesota first and ened up losing by 3 points. I was pretty happy with how we played and I thought we should have won that one but one of our big guns came up empty on a break and on another table, their guy made a fantastic out on us (including perfect position on a tight cross corner bank on the 8). We ended up taking 3rd in our flight and had to beat the 2nd place team from the other flight which turned out to be a team from South Dakota. We won that and went on to the double elimination tournament, that was a $2500 match for us.
Our first match in the double elimination bracket started off terribly. We were blowing run outs and they were firing on all cylinders. We were down 71 to 25 at one point. Then things turned around and we made a fantastic come back (including one of the best shots I've ever pulled off in my life) and won it in the 5th round.
The second match on the winners side put us against the team from Minnesota that we lost to earlier. This time it wasn't close. We got murdered. I don't think we made it out of the fourth round. Our next match was against another team from Minnesota that was super strong. They had Beau Runnigan, Jamie Ferrell and Tony Z. We jumped out to a huge lead mostly because we were getting the breaks. They broke empty or missed and we got out almost every time. We ended up winning in the 5th round by a few points but they were super tough and I felt like we got away with one in that match.
So now we're in the finals and up against that same team from Minnesota. The team seems to be a perennial force and has won the BCA and VNEA masters division a bunch of times (including the time we took 4th a few years back). The team consists of Ty, Mario, Brian, Josh and an old teamate of mine, Rich Cunningham.
I started out well by breaking and running my first rack. Then I went on to dog two run outs late in each game. I think I got nervous. They were difficult shots but nothing I haven't made before. We were up by two going into the last game and our guy comes up empty on the break again (he has a big break and can routinely break in the 27-28 mph range)! Their guy Brian ran it out for the win. We ended up losing by 2 points because the guy I was playing made the 8 out of turn on a crazy fluke shot the game before. This was the third time we lost to this team in the same tournament, ugh.
So, we took 2nd place and collected $5500 for the team. I'm pretty happy with that considering we didn't have big expectations coming into it. But I would have loved to take them to a second set. We were actually going to play in the BCA open but like I said, we had scheduling conflicts. So that's it, I guess I'm a VNEA master player for life now. lol.
This year my team had some scheduling issues so we decided to play in the masters team event. I got there Tuesday, the night before the tournament started. Based on what everyone was saying about the BCA tournament turnout I was pretty excited but was dissapointed with the turnout when I finally got to the Riv. It seemed emtpy to me and there was no action to speak of.
Anyway, the masters division had 13 teams. We were broken up into two flights. We started with a round robin format with the first place team from each flight getting seeded in a 4 team double elimination "money" bracket. The 2nd and 3rd place teams from each flight had to play in a play off to get to the double elimination bracket. I liked the format and it resulted in a lot of pool. The matches were scheduled well, not too much time between matches but we weren't rushed in any way.
We played a team from Minnesota first and ened up losing by 3 points. I was pretty happy with how we played and I thought we should have won that one but one of our big guns came up empty on a break and on another table, their guy made a fantastic out on us (including perfect position on a tight cross corner bank on the 8). We ended up taking 3rd in our flight and had to beat the 2nd place team from the other flight which turned out to be a team from South Dakota. We won that and went on to the double elimination tournament, that was a $2500 match for us.
Our first match in the double elimination bracket started off terribly. We were blowing run outs and they were firing on all cylinders. We were down 71 to 25 at one point. Then things turned around and we made a fantastic come back (including one of the best shots I've ever pulled off in my life) and won it in the 5th round.
The second match on the winners side put us against the team from Minnesota that we lost to earlier. This time it wasn't close. We got murdered. I don't think we made it out of the fourth round. Our next match was against another team from Minnesota that was super strong. They had Beau Runnigan, Jamie Ferrell and Tony Z. We jumped out to a huge lead mostly because we were getting the breaks. They broke empty or missed and we got out almost every time. We ended up winning in the 5th round by a few points but they were super tough and I felt like we got away with one in that match.
So now we're in the finals and up against that same team from Minnesota. The team seems to be a perennial force and has won the BCA and VNEA masters division a bunch of times (including the time we took 4th a few years back). The team consists of Ty, Mario, Brian, Josh and an old teamate of mine, Rich Cunningham.
I started out well by breaking and running my first rack. Then I went on to dog two run outs late in each game. I think I got nervous. They were difficult shots but nothing I haven't made before. We were up by two going into the last game and our guy comes up empty on the break again (he has a big break and can routinely break in the 27-28 mph range)! Their guy Brian ran it out for the win. We ended up losing by 2 points because the guy I was playing made the 8 out of turn on a crazy fluke shot the game before. This was the third time we lost to this team in the same tournament, ugh.
So, we took 2nd place and collected $5500 for the team. I'm pretty happy with that considering we didn't have big expectations coming into it. But I would have loved to take them to a second set. We were actually going to play in the BCA open but like I said, we had scheduling conflicts. So that's it, I guess I'm a VNEA master player for life now. lol.
